UC-NRLF 


SB 


353 


A 

StmicjktDeal 

or 

TJieAncient 
Grudge 


Peace  and  friendship  wtih  all  mankind 
is  ourwisestpolicy,  and  I  wish  we  may 
be  permitted  to  pursue  it. 

Thomasjefferson 


O 


wen 


- 


sAwwII  //M 

dl  » 

iit 


7 

r 


?  JUk  A 


A    STRAIGHT    DEAL 

OB 

THE    ANCIENT    GRUDGE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •   BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  -   SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 


OR 


THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE 


BY 

OWEN    WISTER 


Wefo  gorfc 

THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1920 

All  rights  reserved 


j  s ,-;  .-Vs;  **»'^s    $."„** 


COPYRIGHT,  1920, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  clectrotyped.    Published  March,  1920. 


PKELAJi? 


Norfooofc 

J.  S.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


•v 


TO 

EDWARD   AND  ANNA  MARTIN 

WHO    GIVE    HELP    IN    TIME    OF 
TROUBLE 


789436 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  CONCERNING  ONE'S  LETTER  Box   ...  1 

II.  WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT       ...  5 

TIL  IN  FRONT  OF  A  BULLETIN  BOARD  ...  29 

IV.  "My  ARMY  OF  SPIES" 39 

V.  THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE    .....  53 

VI.  WHO  Is  WITHOUT  SIN? 59 

VII.  TARRED  WITH  THE  SAME  STICK      .         .         .71 

VIII.  HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC 83 

IX.  CONCERNING  A  COMPLEX        ....  97 

X.  JACKSTRAWS 105 

XI.  SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS 121 

XII.  ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE 139 

XIII.  BENEFITS  FORGOT 173 

XIV.  ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!         ....  183 
XV.  RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA       .         .  203 

XVI.  AN  INTERNATIONAL  IMPOSTURE       .        .         .  253 

XVII.  PAINT 267 

XVIII.  THE  WILL  TO  FRIENDSHIP  —  OR  THE  WILL  TO 

HATE? 275 

XIX.  LION  AND  CUB  283 


CHAPTER  I 
CONCERNING  ONE'S  LETTER  BOX 


A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

OR, 

THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE 

CHAPTER  I 

CONCERNING   ONE'S   LETTER   BOX 

PUBLISH  any  sort  of  conviction  related  to 
these  morose  days  through  which  we  are  living, 
and  letters  will  shower  upon  you  like  leaves  in 
October.  No  matter  what  your  conviction  be, 
it  will  shake  both  yeas  and  nays  loose  from 
various  minds  where  they  were  hanging  ready 
to  fall.  Never  was  a  time  when  so  many  brains 
rustled  with  hates  and  panaceas  that  would 
sail  wide  into  the  air  at  the  lightest  jar.  Try 
it  and  see.  Say  that  you  believe  in  God,  or  do 
not;  say  that  Democracy  is  the  key  to  the 
millennium,  or  the  survival  of  the  unfittest ;  that 
Labor  is  worse  than  the  Kaiser,  or  better;  that 
drink  is  a  demon,  or  that  wine  ministers  to  the 

3 


4  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

health  and  the  cheer  of  man  —  say  what  you 
please,  and  the  yeas  and  nays  will  pelt  you. 
So  insecurely  do  the  plainest,  oldest  truths  dangle 
in  a  mob  of  disheveled  brains,  that  it  is  likely, 
did  you  assert  .twice  two  continues  to  equal  four 
and  we  had  best  stick  to  the  multiplication  table, 
anonymous  letters  would  come  to  you  full  of 
passionate  abuse.  Thinking  comes  hard  to  all 
of  us.  To  some  it  never  comes  at  all,  because 
their  heads  lack  the  machinery.  How  many  of 
such  are  there  among  us,  and  how  can  we  find 
them  out  before  they  do  us  harm?  Science  has 
a  test  for  this.  It  has  been  applied  to  the  army 
recruit,  but  to  the  civilian  voter  not  yet.  The 
voting  moron  still  runs  amuck  in  our  Democracy. 
Our  native  American  air  is  infected  with  alien 
breath.  It  is  so  thick  with  opinions  that  the 
light  is  obscured.  Will  the  sane  ones  eventually 
prevail  and  heal  the  sick  atmosphere?  We 
must  at  least  assume  so.  Else,  how  could  we 
go  on? 


CHAPTER   II 
WHAT  THE   POSTMAN   BROUGHT 


CHAPTER  II 

WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT 

DURING  the  winter  of  1915  I  came  to  think 
that  Germany  had  gone  dangerously  but  method 
ically  mad,  and  that  the  European  War  vitally 
concerned  ourselves.  This  conviction  I  put  in 
a  book.  Yeas  and  nays  pelted  me.  Time  seems 
to  show  the  yeas  had  it. 

During  May,  1918,  I  thought  we  made  a  mis 
take  to  hate  England.  I  said  so  at  the  earliest 
opportunity.  Again  came  the  yeas  and  nays. 
You  shall  see  some  of  these.  They  are  of  help. 
Time  has  not  settled  this  question.  It  is  as 
alive  as  ever  —  more  alive  than  ever.  What 
if  the  Armistice  was  premature?  What  if  Ger 
many  absorb  Russia  and  join  Japan?  What  if 
the  League  of  Nations  break  like  a  toy? 

Yeas  and  nays  are  put  here  without  the  con 
sent  of  their  writers,  whose  names,  of  course,  do 
not  appear,  and  who,  should  they  ever  see  this, 
are  begged  to  take  no  offense.  None  is  intended. 

7 


8  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

There  is  no  intention  except  to  persuade,  if 
possible,  a  few  readers,  at  least,  that  hatred  of 
England  is  not  wise,  is  not  justified  to-day,  and 
has  never  been  more  than  partly  justified.  It 
is  based  upon  three  foundations  fairly  distinct 
yet  meeting  and  merging  on  occasions :  first 
and  worst,  our  school  histories  of  the  Revolution ; 
second,  certain  policies  and  actions  of  England 
since  then,  generally  distorted  or  falsified  by 
our  politicians ;  and  lastly  certain  national  traits 
in  each  country  that  the  other  does  not  share 
and  which  have  hitherto  produced  perennial 
personal  friction  between  thousands  of  English 
and  American  individuals  of  every  station  in 
life.  These  shall  in  due  time  be  illustrated  by 
two  sets  of  anecdotes :  one,  disclosing  the  Eng 
lish  traits,  the  other  the  American.  I  say  Eng 
lish,  and  not  British,  advisedly,  because  both 
the  Scotch  and  the  Irish  seem  to  be  without 
those  traits  which  especially  grate  upon  us  and 
upon  which  we  especially  grate.  And  now  for 
the  letters. 

The  first  is  from  a  soldier,  an  enlisted  man, 
writing  from  France. 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT      9 

"  Allow  me  to  thank  you  for  your  article  en 
titled  'The  Ancient  Grudge.'  .  .  .  Like  many 
other  young  Americans  there  was  instilled  in 
me  from  early  childhood  a  feeling  of  resentment 
against  our  democratic  cousins  across  the  At 
lantic  and  I  was  only  too  ready  to  accept  as 
true  those  stories  I  heard  of  England  shirking 
her  duty  and  hiding  behind  her  colonies,  etc.  It 
was  not  until  I  came  over  here  and  saw  what  she 
was  really  doing  that  my  opinion  began  to  change. 

"When  first  my  division  arrived  in  France  it 
was  brigaded  with  and  received  its  initial  ex 
perience  with  the  British,  who  proved  to  us 
how  little  we  really  knew  of  the  war  as  it  was 
and  that  we  had  yet  much  to  learn.  Soon  my 
opinion  began  to  change  and  I  was  regarding 
England  as  the  backbone  of  the  Allies.  Yet 
there  remained  a  certain  something  I  could  not 
forgive  them.  What  it  was  you  know,  and 
have  proved  to  me  that  it  is  not  our  place  to 
judge  and  that  we  have  much  for  which  to  be 
thankful  to  our  great  Ally. 

"Assuring  you  that  your  .  .  .  article  has  suc 
ceeded  in  converting  one  who  needed  conversion 
badly  I  beg  to  remain.  ..." 


10  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

How  many  American  soldiers  in  Europe,  I 
wonder,  have  looked  about  them,  have  used 
their  sensible  independent  American  brains  (our 
very  best  characteristic),  have  left  school  his 
tories  and  hearsay  behind  them  and  judged  the 
English  for  themselves?  A  good  many,  it  is 
to  be  hoped.  What  that  judgment  finally  be 
comes  must  depend  not  alone  upon  the  personal 
experience  of  each  man.  It  must  also  come 
from  that  liberality  of  outlook  which  is  attained 
only  by  getting  outside  your  own  place  and  see 
ing  a  lot  of  customs  and  people  that  differ  from 
your  own.  A  mind  thus  seasoned  and  balanced 
no  longer  leaps  to  an  opinion  about  a  whole 
nation  from  the  sporadic  conduct  of  individual 
members  of  it.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  some  of 
our  soldiers  may  never  forget  or  make  allowance 
for  a  certain  insult  they  received  in  the  streets 
of  London.  But  of  this  later.  The  following 
sentence  is  from  a  letter  written  by  an  American 
sailor : 

"I  have  read  .  .  .  'The  Ancient  Grudge'  and 
I  wish  it  could  be  read  by  every  man  on  our  big 
ship  as  I  know  it  would  change  a  lot  of  their 
attitude  toward  England.  I  have  argued  with 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     11 

lots  of  them  and  have  shown  some  of  them  where 
they  are  wrong  but  the  Catholics  and  descendants 
of  Ireland  have  a  different  argument  and  as  my 
education  isn't  very  great,  I  know  very  little 
about  what  England  did  to  the  Catholics  in 
Ireland." 

Ireland  I  shall  discuss  later.  Ireland  is  no 
more  our  business  to-day  than  the  South  was 
England's  business  in  1861.  That  the  Irish 
question  should  defeat  an  understanding  be 
tween  ourselves  and  England  would  be,  to 
quote  what  a  gentleman  who  is  at  once  a  loyal 
Catholic  and  a  loyal  member  of  the  British 
Government  said  to  me,  "  wrecking  the  ship 
for  a  ha'penny  worth  of  tar." 

The  following  is  selected  from  the  nays,  and 
was  written  by  a  business  man.  I  must  not 
omit  to  say  that  the  writers  of  all  these  letters 
are  strangers  to  me. 

"As  one  American  citizen  to  another  .  .  . 
permit  me  to  give  my  personal  view  on  your 
subject  of  'The  Ancient  Grudge'  .  .  . 

"To  begin  with,  I  think  that  you  start  with 
a  false  idea  of  our  kinship  —  with  the  idea  that 
America,  because  she  speaks  the  language  of 


12  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

England,  because  our  laws  and  customs  are  to 
a  great  extent  of  the  same  origin,  because  much 
that  is  good  among  us  came  from  there  also, 
is  essentially  of  English  character,  bound  up 
in  some  way  with  the  success  or  failure  of  Eng 
land. 

"  Nothing,  in  my  opinion,  could  be  further 
from  the  truth.  We  are  a  distinctive  race  —  no 
more  English,  nationally,  than  the  present  King 
George  is  German  —  as  closely  related  and  as 
alike  as  a  celluloid  comb  and  a  stick  of  dyna 
mite. 

"We  are  bound  up  in  the  success  of  America 
only.  The  English  are  bound  up  in  the  success 
of  England  only.  We  are  as  friendly  as  rival 
corporations.  We  can  unite  in  a  common  cause, 
as  we  have,  but,  once  that  is  over,  we  will  go 
our  own  way  —  which  way,  owing  to  the  in 
crease  of  our  shipping  and  foreign  trade,  is 
likely  to  become  more  and  more  antagonistic 
to  England's. 

"  England  has  been  a  commercially  unscrupu 
lous  nation  for  generations  and  it  is  idle  to  throw 
the  blame  for  this  or  that  act  of  a  nation  on  an 
individual.  Such  arguments  might  be  kept  up 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT  13 

indefinitely  as  regards  an  act  of  any  country. 
A  responsible  nation  must  bear  the  praise  or 
odium  that  attaches  to  any  national  action.  If 
England  has  experienced  a  change  of  heart  it 
has  occurred  since  the  days  of  the  Boer  Republic 
—  as  wanton  a  steal  as  Belgium,  with  even  less 
excuse,  and  attended  with  sufficient  brutality 
for  all  practical  purposes.  .  .  . 

"She  has  done  us  many  an  ill  turn  gratuitously 
and  not  a  single  good  turn  that  was  not  dictated 
by  selfish  policy  or  jealousy  of  others.  She  has 
shown  herself,  up  till  yesterday  at  least,  grasping 
and  unscrupulous.  She  is  no  worse  than  the 
others  probably  —  possibly  even  better  —  but 
it  would  be  doing  our  country  an  ill  turn  to  per 
suade  its  citizens  that  England  was  anything 
less  than  an  active,  dangerous,  competitor,  es 
pecially  in  the  infancy  of  our  foreign  trade. 
When  a  business  rival  gives  you  the  glad  hand 
and  asks  fondly  after  the  children,  beware  lest 
the  ensuing  emotions  cost  you  money. 

"No :  our  distrust  for  England  has  not  its  life 
and  being  in  pernicious  textbooks.  To  really 
believe  that  would  be  an  insult  to  our  intelli 
gence  —  even  grudges  cannot  live  without  real 


14  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

food.  Should  England  become  helpless  to 
morrow,  our  animosity  and  distrust  would  die 
to-morrow,  because  we  would  know  that  she  had 
it  no  longer  in  her  power  to  injure  us.  Therein  lies 
the  feeling  —  the  textbooks  merely  echo  it.  ... 

"In  my  opinion,  a  navy  somewhat  larger 
than  England's  would  practically  eliminate  from 
America  that  ' Ancient  Grudge '  you  deplore. 
It  is  England's  navy  —  her  boasted  and  actual 
control  of  the  seas  —  which  threatens  and  irri 
tates  every  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe  that 
has  maritime  aspirations.  She  may  use  it  with 
discretion,  as  she  has  for  years.  It  may  even 
be  at  times  a  source  of  protection  to  others,  as 
it  has  —  but  so  long  as  it  exists  as  a  supreme 
power  it  is  a  constant  source  of  danger  and  food 
for  grudges. 

"We  will  never  be  a  free  nation  until  our 
navy  surpasses  England's.  The  world  will  never 
be  a  free  world  until  the  seas  and  trade  routes  are 
free  to  all,  at  all  times,  and  without  any  menace, 
however  benevolent. 

"In  conclusion  .  .  .  allow  me  to  again  state 
that  I  write  as  one  American  citizen  to  another 
with  not  the  slightest  desire  to  say  anything  that 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     15 

may  be  personally  obnoxious.  My  own  an 
cestors  were  from  England.  My  personal  re 
lations  with  the  Englishmen  I  have  met  have 
been  very  pleasant.  I  can  readily  believe  that 
there  are  no  better  people  living,  but  I  feel  so 
strongly  on  the  subject,  nationally  —  so  bitterly 
opposed  to  a  continuance  of  England's  sea  con 
trol  —  so  fearful  that  our  people  may  be  lulled 
into  a  feeling  of  false  security,  that  I  cannot 
help  trying  to  combat,  with  every  small  means 
in  my  power,  anything  that  seems  to  propagate 
a  dangerous  friendship." 

I  received  no  dissenting  letter  superior  to  this. 
To  the  writer  of  it  I  replied  that  I  agreed  with 
much  that  he  said,  but  that  even  so  it  did  not 
in  my  opinion  outweigh  the  reasons  I  had  given 
(and  shall  now  give  more  abundantly)  in  favor 
of  dropping  our  hostile  feeling  toward  England. 

My  correspondent  says  that  we  differ  as  a  race 
from  the  English  as  much  as  a  celluloid  comb 
from  a  stick  of  dynamite.  Did  our  soldiers  find 
the  difference  as  great  as  that?  I  doubt  if  our 
difference  from  anybody  is  quite  as  great  as 
that.  Again,  my  correspondent  says  that  we 
are  bound  up  in  our  own  success  only,  and  Eng- 


16  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

land  is  bound  up  in  hers  only.  I  agree.  But 
suppose  the  two  successes  succeed  better  through 
friendship  than  through  enmity?  We  are  as 
friendly,  my  correspondent  says,  as  two  rival 
corporations.  Again  I  agree.  Has  it  not  been 
proved  this  long  while  that  competing  corpora 
tions  prosper  through  friendship?  Did  not  the 
Northern  Pacific  and  the  Great  Northern  form 
a  combination  called  the  Northern  Securities, 
for  the  sake  of  mutual  benefit?  Under  the 
Sherman  Act  the  Northern  Securities  was  dis 
solved;  but  no  Sherman  act  forbids  a  Liberty 
Securities.  Liberty,  defined  and  assured  by  Law, 
is  England's  gift  to  the  modern  world.  Liberty, 
defined  and  assured  by  Law,  is  the  central  pur 
pose  of  our  Constitution.  Just  as  identically  as 
the  Northern  Pacific  and  Great  Northern  run 
from  St.  Paul  to  Seattle  do  England  and  the 
United  States  aim  at  Liberty,  defined  and  assured 
by  Law.  As  friends,  the  two  nations  can  swing 
the  world  towards  world  stability.  My  cor 
respondent  would  hardly  have  instanced  the 
Boers  in  his  reference  to  England's  misdeeds, 
had  he  reflected  upon  the  part  the  Boers  have 
played  in  England's  struggle  with  Germany. 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     17 

I  will  point  out  no  more  of  the  latent  weak 
nesses  that  underlie  various  passages  in  this 
letter,  but  proceed  to  the  remaining  letters  that 
I  have  selected.  I  gave  one  from  an  enlisted 
man  and  one  from  a  sailor ;  this  is  from  a 
commissioned  officer,  in  France. 

"I  cannot  refrain  from  sending  you  a  line  of 
appreciation  and  thanks  for  giving  the  people 
at  home  a  few  facts  that  I  am  sure  some  do  not 
know  and  throwing  a  light  upon  a  much  dis 
cussed  topic,  which  I  am  sure  will  help  to  remove 
from  some  of  their  minds  a  foolish  bigoted  an 
tipathy." 

Upon  the  single  point  of  our  school  histories 
of  the  Revolution,  some  of  which  I  had  named 
as  being  guilty  of  distorting  the  facts,  a  cor 
respondent  writes  from  Nebraska : 

"Some  months  ago  .  .  .  the  question  came  to 
me,  what  about  our  Montgomery's  History 
now.  ...  I  find  that  everywhere  it  is  the 
King  who  is  represented  as  taking  these  measures 
against  the  American  people.  On  page  134  is 
the  heading,  American  Commerce;  the  new  King, 
George  III;  how  he  interfered  with  trade;  page 
135,  The  King  proposes  to  tax  the  Colonies;  page 


18  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

136,  'The  best  men  in  Parliament  —  such  men 
as  William  Pitt  and  Edmund  Burke  —  took  the 
side  of  the  colonies.'  On  page  138,  '  William 
Pitt  said  in  Parliament,  "in  my  opinion,  this 
kingdom  has  no  right  to  lay  a  tax  on  the  col 
onies  ...  I  rejoice  that  America  has  re 
sisted'";  page  150,  'The  English  people  would 
not  volunteer  to  fight  the  Americans  and 
the  King  had  to  hire  nearly  30,000  Hessians 
to  help  do  the  work.  .  .  .  The  Americans  had 
not  sought  separation ;  the  King  —  not  the 
English  people  —  had  forced  it  on  them.  .  .  .' 
"I  am  writing  this  .  .  .  because,  as  I  was 
glad  to  see,  you  did  not  mince  words  in  naming 
several  of  the  worse  offenders."  (He  means 
certain  school  histories  that  I  mentioned  and 
shall  mention  later  again.) 

An  official  from  Pittsburgh  wrote  thus : 
"In  common  with  many  other  people,  I  have 
had  the  same  idea  that  England  was  not  doing 
all  she  could  in  the  war,  that  while  her  colonies 
were  in  the  thick  of  it,  she,  herself,  seemed  to 
be  sparing  herself,  but  after  reading  this  article 
...  I  will  frankly  and  candidly  confess  to  you 
that  it  has  changed  my  opinion,  made  me  a 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     19 

strong  supporter  of  England,  and  above  all 
made  me  a  better  American." 

From  Massachusetts : 

"It  is  well  to  remind  your  readers  of  the  errors 
—  or  worse  —  in  American  school  text  books 
and  to  recount  Britain's  achievements  in  the 
present  war.  But  of  what  practical  avail  are 
these  things  when  a  man  so  highly  placed  as  the 
present  Secretary  of  the  Navy  asks  a  Boston 
audience  (Tremont  Temple,  October  30,  1918) 
to  believe  that  it  was  the  American  navy  which 
made  possible  the  transportation  of  over 
2,000,000  Americans  to  France  without  the  loss 
of  a  single  transport  on  the  way  over?  Did  he 
not  know  that  the  greater  part  of  those  troops 
were  not  only  transported,  but  convoyed,  by 
British  vessels,  largely  withdrawn  for  that  pur 
pose  from  such  vital  service  as  the  supply  of 
food  to  Britain's  civil  population?" 

The  omission  on  the  part  of  our  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  was  later  quietly  rectified  by  an  official 
publication  of  the  British  Government,  wherein 
it  appeared  that  some  sixty  per  cent  of  our  troops 
were  transported  in  British  ships.  Our  Secre 
tary's  regrettable  slight  to  our  British  allies  was 


20  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

immediately  set  right  by  Admiral  Sims,  who 
forthwith,  both  in  public  and  in  private,  paid 
full  and  appreciative  tribute  to  what  had  been 
done.  It  is,  nevertheless,  very  likely  that  some 
Americans  will  learn  here  for  the  first  time  that 
more  than  half  of  our  troops  were  not  transported 
by  ourselves,  and  could  not  have  been  trans 
ported  at  all  but  for  British  assistance.  There 
are  many  persons  who  still  believe  what  our 
politicians  and  newspapers  tell  them.  No  in 
cident  that  I  shall  relate  further  on  serves  better 
to  point  the  chief  international  moral  at  which 
I  am  driving  throughout  these  pages,  and  at 
which  I  have  already  hinted :  Never  to  general 
ize  the  character  of  a  whole  nation  by  the  acts 
of  individual  members  of  it.  That  is  what 
everybody  does,  ourselves,  the  English,  the 
French,  everybody.  You  can  form  no  valid 
opinion  of  any  nation's  characteristics,  not  even 
your  own,  until  you  have  met  hundreds  of  its 
people,  men  and  women,  and  had  ample  oppor 
tunity  to  observe  and  know  them  beneath  the 
surface.  Here  on  the  one  hand  we  had  our 
Secretary  of  the  Navy.  He  gave  our  Navy  the 
whole  credit  for  getting  our  soldiers  overseas. 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     21 

He  justified  the  British  opinion  that  we  are  a 
nation  of  braggarts.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
London,  we  had  Admiral  Sims,  another  Amer 
ican,  a  splendid  antidote.  He  corrected  the 
Secretary's  brag.  What  is  the  moral?  Look 
out  how  you  generalize.  Since  we  entered  the 
war  that  tribe  of  English  has  increased  who  judge 
us  with  an  open  mind,  discriminate  between  us, 
draw  close  to  a  just  appraisal  of  our  qualities 
and  defects,  and  possibly  even  discern  that 
those  who  fill  our  public  positions  are  mostly 
on  a  lower  level  than  those  who  elect  them. 

I  proceed  with  two  more  letters,  both  dissent 
ing,  and  both  giving  very  typically,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  the  American  feeling  about  England  - 
partially  justified  by  instances  mentioned  by 
my  correspondent,  but  equally  mentioned  by 
me  in  passages  which  he  seems  to  have  skipped. 

"  Lately  I  read  and  did  not  admire  your  article 
.  .  .  'The  Ancient  Grudge.'  Many  of  your 
statements  are  absolutely  true,  and  I  recognize 
the  fact  that  England's  help  in  this  war  has  been 
invaluable.  Let  it  go  at  that  and  hush! 

"I  do  not  defend  our  own  Indian  policy.  .  .  . 
Wounded  and  disabled  in  our  Indian  wars  .  .  . 


22  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

I  know  all  about  them  and  how  indefensible  they 
are 

"  England  has  been  always  our  only  legitimate 
enemy.  1776?  Yes,  call  it  ancient  history  and 
forget  it  if  possible.  1812?  That  may  go  in 
the  same  category.  But  the  causes  of  that  mis 
understanding  were  identically  repeated  in  1914 
and  15. 

"  1861  ?  Is  that  also  ancient  ?  Perhaps  —  but 
very  bitter  in  the  memory  of  many  of  us  now 
living.  The  Alabama.  The  Confederate  Com 
missioners  (I  know  you  will  say  we  were  wrong 
there  —  and  so  we  may  have  been  technically 
—  but  John  Bull  bullied  us  into  compliance 
when  our  hands  were  tied).  Lincoln  told  his 
Cabinet  'one  war  at  a  time,  Gentlemen'  and 
submitted.  .  .  . 

"In  1898  we  were  a  strong  and  powerful  nation 
and  a  dangerous  enemy  to  provoke.  England 
recognized  the  fact  and  acted  accordingly.  Eng 
land  entered  the  present  war  to  protect  small 
nations!  Heaven  save  the  mark!  You  surely 
read  your  history.  Pray  tell  me  something  of 
England's  policy  in  South  Africa,  India,  the 
Soudan,  Persia,  Abyssinia,  Ireland,  Egypt.  The 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     23 

lost  provinces  of  Denmark.  The  United  States 
when  she  was  young  and  helpless.  And  thus, 
almost  to  infinitum. 

"Do  you  not  know  that  the  foundations  of 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  great  British  fortunes 
came  from  the  loot  of  India?  upheld  and  fostered 
by  the  great  and  unscrupulous  East  India  Com 
pany?  

"Come  down  to  later  times:  to-day  for  in 
stance.  Here  in  California  ...  I  meet  and 
associate  with  hundreds  of  Britishers.  Are  they 
American  citizens?  I  had  almost  said,  'No, 
not  one.7  Sneering  and  contemptuous  of 
America  and  American  institutions.  Continually 
finding  fault  with  our  government  and  our  people. 
Comparing  these  things  with  England,  always  to 
our  disadvantage 

"Now  do  you  wonder  we  do  not  like  England? 
Am  I  pro-German?  I  should  laugh  and  so 
would  you  if  you  knew  me." 

To  this  correspondent  I  did  not  reply  that  I 
wished  I  knew  him  —  which  I  do  —  that,  even 
as  he,  so  I  had  frequently  been  galled  by  the 
rudeness  and  the  patronizing  of  various  speci 
mens,  high  and  low,  of  the  English  race.  But 


24  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

something  I  did  reply,  to  the  effect  that  I 
asked  nobody  to  consider  England  flawless,  or 
any  nation  a  charitable  institution,  but  merely 
to  be  fair,  and  to  consider  a  cordial  understand 
ing  between  us  greatly  to  our  future  advantage. 
To  this  he  answered,  in  part,  as  follows : 

"I  wish  to  thank  you  for  your  kindly 
reply.  .  .  .  Your  argument  is  that  as  a  matter 
of  policy  we  should  conciliate  Great  Britain. 
Have  we  fallen  so  low,  this  great  and  powerful 
nation?  .  .  .  Truckling  to  some  other  power 
because  its  backing,  moral  or  physical,  may 
some  day  be  of  use  to  us,  even  tho'  we  know 
that  in  so  doing  we  are  surrendering  our  dearest 
rights,  principles,  and  dignity!  ...  Oh!  my 
dear  Sir,  you  surely  do  not  advocate  this?  I 
inclose  an  editorial  clipping.  ...  Is  it  no 
shock  to  you  when  Winston  Churchill  shouts 
to  High  Heaven  that  under  no  circumstances 
will  Great  Britain  surrender  its  supreme  control 
of  the  seas?  This  in  reply  to  President  Wilson's 
plea  for  freedom  of  the  seas  and  curtailment  of 
armaments.  .  .  .  But  as  you  see,  our  President 
and  our  Mr.  Daniels  have  already  said,  'Very 
well,  we  will  outbuild  you.'  Never  again  shall 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     25 

Great  Britain  stop  our  mail  ships  and  search  our 
private  mails.  Already  has  England  declared  an 
embargo  against  our  exports  in  many  essential 
lines  and  already  are  we  expressing  our  dissatis 
faction  and  taking  means  to  retaliate " 

Of  the  editorial  clipping  inclosed  with  the 
above,  the  following  is  a  part : 

"John  Bull  is  our  associate  in  the  contest  with 
the  Kaiser.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  his  position 
on  that  proposition.  He  went  after  the  Dutch 
in  great  shape.  Next  to  France  he  led  the  way 
and  said,  'Come  on,  Yanks;  we  need  your  help. 
We  will  put  you  in  the  first  line  of  trenches  where 
there  will  be  good  gunning.  Yes,  we  will  do  all 
of  that  and  at  the  same  time  we  will  borrow  your 
money,  raised  by  Liberty  Loans,  and  use  it  for 
the  purchase  of  American  wheat,  pork,  and 
beef.' 

"Mr.  Bull  kept  his  word.  He  never  flinched 
or  attempted  to  dodge  the  issue.  He  kept  strictly 
in  the  middle  of  the  road.  His  determination  to 
down  the  Kaiser  with  American  men,  American 
money,  and  American  food  never  abated  for  a 
single  day  during  the  conflict." 

This  editorial  has  many  twins  throughout  the 


26  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

country.  I  quote  it  for  its  value  as  a  specimen 
of  that  sort  of  journalistic  and  political  utterance 
amongst  us,  which  is  as  seriously  embarrassed  by 
facts  as  a  skunk  by  its  tail.  Had  its  author 
said:  "The  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
signed  by  Christopher  Columbus  on  Washing 
ton's  birthday  during  the  siege  of  Vicksburg  in 
the  presence  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Judas 
Iscariot,"  his  statement  would  have  been  equally 
veracious,  and  more  striking. 

As  to  Winston  Churchill's  declaration  that 
Great  Britain  will  not  surrender  her  control 
of  the  seas,  I  am  as  little  shocked  by  that 
as  I  should  be  were  our  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  to  declare  that  in  no  circumstances  would 
we  give  up  control  of  the  Panama  Canal.  The 
Panama  Canal  is  our  carotid  artery,  Great 
Britain's  navy  is  her  jugular  vein.  It  is  her 
jugular  vein  in  the  mind  of  her  people,  regardless 
of  that  new  apparition,  the  submarine.  I  was 
not  shocked  that  Great  Britain  should  decline 
Mr.  Wilson's  invitation  that  she  cut  her  jugular 
vein;  it  was  the  invitation  which  kindled  my 
emotions;  but  these  were  of  a  less  serious 
kind. 


WHAT  THE  POSTMAN  BROUGHT     27 

The  last  letter  that  I  shall  give  is  from  an 
American  citizen  of  English  birth. 

"As  a  boy  at  school  in  England,  I  was  taught 
the  history  of  the  American  Revolution  as  J.  R. 
Green  presents  it  in  his  Short  History  of  the  English 
People.  The  gist  of  this  record,  as  you  doubtless 
recollect,  is  that  George  III  being  engaged  in  the 
attempt  to  destroy  what  there  then  was  of  po 
litical  freedom  and  representative  government  in 
England,  used  the  American  situation  as  a  means 
to  that  end ;  that  the  English  people,  in  so  far 
as  their  voice  could  make  itself  heard,  were  solidly 
against  both  his  English  and  American  policy, 
and  that  the  triumph  of  America  contributed  in 
no  small  measure  to  the  salvation  of  those  in 
stitutions  by  which  the  evolution  of  England 
towards  complete  democracy  was  made  possible. 
Washington  was  held  up  to  us  in  England  not 
merely  as  a  great  and  good  man,  but  as  an  heroic 
leader,  to  whose  courage  and  wisdom  the  English 
as  well  as  the  American  people  were  eternally 
indebted 

"Pray  forgive  so  long  a  letter  from  a  stranger. 
It  is  prompted  ...  by  a  sense  of  the  illimitable 
importance,  not  only  for  America  and  Britain, 


28  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

but  for  the  entire  world,  of  these  two  great  demo 
cratic  peoples  knowing  each  other  as  they  really 
are  and  cooperating  as  only  they  can  cooperate 
to  establish  and  maintain  peace  on  just  and 
permanent  foundations."  * 


CHAPTER  III 
IN  FRONT  OF  A   BULLETIN   BOARD 


CHAPTER  III 

IN   FRONT   OF   A   BULLETIN   BOARD 

THERE,  then,  are  ten  letters  of  the  fifty  which 
came  to  me  in  consequence  of  what  I  wrote  in 
May,  1918,  which  was  published  in  the  American 
Magazine  for  the  following  November.  Ten  will 
do.  To  read  the  other  forty  would  change  no 
impression  conveyed  already  by  the  ten,  but 
would  merely  repeat  it.  With  varying  phrase 
ology  their  writers  either  think  we  have  hitherto 
misjudged  England  and  that  my  facts  are  to  the 
point,  or  they  express  the  stereotyped  American 
antipathy  to  England  and  treat  my  facts  as  we 
mortals  mostly  do  when  facts  are  embarrassing 
—  side-step  them.  What  best  pleased  me  was 
to  find  that  soldiers  and  sailors  agreed  with  me, 
and  not  "  high-brows  "  only. 

May,  1918,  as  you  will  remember,  was  a  very 
dark  hour.  We  had  come  into  the  war,  had  been 
in  for  a  year;  but  events  had  not  yet  taken  us 

31 


32  A  STRAIGHT   DEAL 

out  of  the  well-nigh  total  eclipse  flung  upon  our 
character  by  those  blighting  words,  "  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  being  too  proud  to  fight."  The 
British  had  been  told  by  their  General  that  they 
were  fighting  with  their  backs  to  the  wall.  Since 
March  23d  the  tread  of  the  Hun  had  been  com 
ing  steadily  nearer  to  Paris.  Belleau  Wood 
and  Chateau-Thierry  had  not  yet  struck  the 
true  ring  from  our  metal  and  put  into  the  hands 
of  Foch  the  one  further  weapon  that  he  needed. 
French  moral  was  burning  very  low  and  blue. 
Yet  even  in  such  an  hour,  people  apparently 
American  and  apparently  grown  up,  were  talk 
ing  against  England,  our  ally.  Then  and  there 
after,  even  as  to-day,  they  talked  against  her 
as  they  had  been  talking  since  August,  1914,  as 
I  had  heard  them  again  and  again,  indoors  and 
out,  as  I  heard  a  man  one  forenoon  in  a  crowd 
during  the  earlier  years  of  the  war,  the  miserable 
years  before  we  waked  from  our  trance  of  neu 
trality,  while  our  chosen  leaders  were  still  mis 
leading  us. 

Do  you  remember  those  unearthly  years? 
The  explosions,  the  plots,  the  spies,  the  Lusi- 
tania,  the  notes,  Mr.  Bryan,  von  Bernstorff, 


IN  FRONT  OF  A  BULLETIN   BOARD         33 

half  our  country  —  oh,  more  than  half !  —  in 
different  or  incredulous,  nothing  prepared,  nothing 
done,  no  step  taken,  Theodore  Roosevelt's  and 
Leonard  Wood's  almost  the  only  voices  warning 
us  what  was  bound  to  happen,  and  to  get  ready 
for  it  ?  Do  you  remember  the  bulletin  boards  ? 
Did  you  grow,  as  I  did,  so  restless  that  you  would 
step  out  of  your  office  to  see  if  anything  new  had 
happened  during  the  last  sixty  minutes — would 
stop  as  you  went  to  lunch  and  stop  as  you  came 
back?  We  knew  from  the  faces  of  our  friends 
what  our  own  faces  were  like.  In  company  we 
pumped  up  liveliness,  but  in  the  street,  alone 
with  our  apprehensions  —  do  you  remember  ? 
For  our  future's  sake  may  everybody  remember, 
may  nobody  forget ! 

What  the  news  was  upon  a  certain  forenoon 
memorable  to  me,  I  do  not  recall,  and  this  is  of 
no  consequence ;  good  or  bad,  the  stream  of  by- 
passers  clotted  thickly  to  read  it  as  the  man 
chalked  it  line  upon  line  across  the  bulletin 
board.  Citizens  who  were  in  haste  stepped 
off  the  curb  to  pass  round  since  they  could  not 
pass  through  this  crowd  of  gazers.  Thus  on  the 
sidewalk  stood  some  fifty  of  us,  staring  at  names 

D 


34  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

we  had  never  known  until  a  little  while  ago, 
B6thincourt,  Malancourt,  perhaps,  or  Mont- 
faucon,  or  Roisel ;  French  names  of  small  places, 
among  whose  crumbled,  featureless  dust  I  have 
walked  since,  where  lived  peacefully  a  few  hun 
dred  or  a  few  thousand  that  are  now  a  thousand 
butchered  or  broken-hearted.  Through  me  ran 
once  again  the  wonder  that  had  often  chilled 
me  since  the  abdication  of  the  Czar  which  made 
certain  the  crumbling  of  Russia :  after  France, 
was  our  turn  coming?  Should  our  fields,  too, 
be  sown  with  bones,  should  our  little  towns 
among  the  orchards  and  the  corn  fall  in  ashes 
amongst  which  broken  hearts  would  wander  in 
search  of  some  surviving  stick  of  property?  I 
had  learned  to  know  that  a  long  while  before  the 
war  the  eyes  of  the  Hun,  the  bird  of  prey,  had 
been  fixed  upon  us  as  a  juicy  morsel.  He  had 
written  it,  he  had  said  it.  Since  August,  1914, 
these  Pan-German  schemes  had  been  leaking 
out  for  all  who  chose  to  understand  them.  A 
great  many  did  not  so  choose.  The  Hun  had 
wanted  us  and  planned  to  get  us,  and  now  more 
than  ever  before,  because  he  intended  that  we 
should  pay  his  war  bills.  Let  him  once  get  by 


IN  FRONT  OF  A  BULLETIN  BOARD         35 

England,  and  his  sword  would  cut  through  our 
fat,  defenseless  carcass  like  a  knife  through 
cheese. 

A  voice  arrested  my  reverie,  a  voice  close  by 
in  the  crowd.  It  said,  "Well,  I  like  the  French. 
But  I'll  not  cry  much  if  England  gets  hers. 
What's  England  done  in  this  war,  anyway?" 

"Her  fleet's  keeping  the  Kaiser  out  of  your 
front  yard,  for  one  thing,"  retorted  another  voice. 

With  assurance  slightly  wobbling  and  a  touch 
of  the  nasal  whine,  the  first  speaker  protested, 
"Well,  look  what  George  III  done  to  us.  Bad 
as  any  Kaiser." 

"Aw,  get  your  facts  straight!"  It  was  said 
with  scornful  force.  "Don't  you  know  George  III 
was  a  German  ?  Don't  you  know  it  was  Hessians 

—  they're  Germans  —  he  hired  to  come  over  here 
and  kill  Americans  and  do  his  dirty  work  for  him  ? 
And  his  Germans  did  the  same  dirty  work  the 
Kaiser's    are    doing    now.     We've    got    a    letter 
written  after  the  battle  of  Long  Island  by  a  mem 
ber  of  our  family  they  took  prisoner  there.     And 
they  stripped  him  and  they  stole  his  things  and 
they  beat  him  down  with  the  butts  of  their  guns 

—  after   he   had   surrendered,    mind  —  when   he 


36  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

was  surrendered  and  naked,  and  when  he  was 
down  they  beat  him  some  more.  That's  Ger 
mans  for  you.  Only  they've  been  getting  worse 
while  the  rest  of  the  world's  been  getting  better. 
Get  your  facts  straight,  man." 

A  number  of  us  were  now  listening  to  this, 
and  I  envied  the  historian  his  ingenious  prompt 
ness  —  I  have  none  —  and  I  hoped  for  more  of 
this  timely  debate.  But  debate  was  over.  The 
anti-Englishman  faded  to  silence.  Either  he 
was  out  of  facts  to  get  straight,  or  lacked  what 
is  so  pithily  termed  " come-back."  The  latter, 
I  incline  to  think ;  for  come-back  needs  no  facts, 
it  is  a  self-feeder,  and  its  entire  absence  in  the 
anti-Englishman  looks  as  if  he  had  been  a  German. 
Germans  do  not  come  back  when  it  goes  against 
them,  they  bleat  "Kamerad!" —  or  disappear. 
Perhaps  this  man  was  a  spy  —  a  poor  one,  to  be 
sure  —  yet  doing  his  best  for  his  Kaiser :  slink 
ing  about,  peeping,  listening,  trying  to  wedge  the 
Allies  apart,  doing  his  little  bit  towards  making 
friends  enemies,  just  as  his  breed  has  worked  to 
set  enmity  between  ourselves  and  Japan,  our 
selves  and  Mexico,  France  and  England,  France 
and  Italy,  England  and  Russia,  between  every- 


IN  FRONT  OF  A  BULLETIN  BOARD    37 

body  and  everybody  else  all  the  world  over,  in 
the  sacred  name  and  for  the  sacred  sake  of  the 
Kaiser.  Thus  has  his  breed,  since  we  occupied 
Coblenz,  run  to  the  French  soldiers  with  lies 
about  us  and  then  run  to  us  with  lies  about  the 
French  soldiers,  overlooking  in  its  providential 
stupidity  the  fact  that  we  and  the  French  would 
inevitably  compare  notes.  Thus  too  is  his  breed, 
at  the  moment  I  write  these  words,  infesting 
and  poisoning  the  earth  with  a  propaganda  that 
remains  as  coherent  and  as  systematically  directed 
as  ever  it  was  before  the  papers  began  to  assure 
us  that  there  was  nothing  left  of  the  Hohen- 
zollern  government. 


CHAPTER   IV 
"MY  ARMY  OF   SPIES" 


CHAPTER  IV 

"  MY   ARMY   OF   SPIES  " 

"You  will  desire  to  know/'  said  the  Kaiser  to 
his  council  at  Potsdam  in  June,  1908,  after  the 
successful  testing  of  the  first  Zeppelin,  "how 
the  hostilities  will  be  brought  about.  My  army 
of  spies  scattered  over  Great  Britain  and  France, 
as  it  is  over  North  and  South  America,  will  take 
good  care  of  that.  Even  now  I  rule  supreme  in 
the  United  States,  where  three  million  voters  do 
my  bidding  at  the  Presidential  elections/' 

Yes,  they  did  his  bidding ;  there,  and  elsewhere 
too.  They  did  it  at  other  elections  as  well.  Do 
you  remember  the  mayor  they  tried  to  elect  in 
Chicago  ?  and  certain  members  of  Congress  ?  and 
certain  manufacturers  and  bankers?  They  did 
his  bidding  in  our  newspapers,  our  public  schools, 
and  from  the  pulpit.  The  river  counties  of  Iowa 
(for  instance)  were  spots  of  German  treason  to 
the  United  States.  The  " exchange  professors" 
that  came  from  Berlin  to  Harvard  and  other 

41 


42  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

universities  were  so  many  camouflaged  spies. 
Certain  prominent  American  citizens,  dined  and 
wined  and  flattered  by  the  Kaiser  for  his  purpose, 
women  as  well  as  men,  came  back  here  mere 
Kaiser-puppets,  hypnotized  by  royalty.  His  bid 
ding  was  done  in  as  many  ways  as  would  fill 
a  book.  Shopkeepers  did  it,  servants  did  it, 
Americans  among  us  were  decorated  by  him  for 
doing  it.  Even  after  the  Armistice,  a  school 
textbook  "got  by"  the  Board  of  Education  in 
a  western  state,  wherein  our  boys  and  girls  were 
to  be  taught  a  German  version  —  a  Kaiser 
version  —  of  Germany.  Somebody  protested, 
and  the  board  explained  that  it  "hadn't  noticed," 
and  the  book  was  held  up. 

We  cannot,  I  fear,  order  the  school  histories  in 
Germany  to  be  edited  by  the  Allies.  German 
school  children  will  grow  up  believing,  in  all  prob 
ability,  that  bombs  were  dropped  near  Niirnberg 
in  July,  1914,  that  German  soil  was  invaded,  that 
the  Fatherland  fought  a  war  of  defense ;  they  will 
certainly  be  nourished  by  lies  in  the  future  as 
they  were  nourished  by  lies  in  the  past.  But 
we  can  prevent  Germans  or  pro-Germans  writing 
our  own  school  histories ;  we  can  prevent  that 


"MY  ARMY  OF  SPIES"  43 

"army  of  spies"  of  which  the  Kaiser  boasted  to 
his  council  at  Potsdam  in  June,  1908,  from  con 
tinuing  its  activities  among  us  now  and  hence 
forth  ;  and  we  can  prevent  our  school  textbooks 
from  playing  into  Germany's  hand  by  teaching 
hate  of  England  to  our  boys  and  girls.  Beside 
the  sickening  silliness  which  still  asks,  "What 
has  England  done  in  the  war?"  is  a  silliness  still 
more  sickening  which  says,  "Germany  is  beaten. 
Let  us  forgive  and  forget."  That  is  not  Chris 
tianity.  There  is  nothing  Christian  about  it. 
It  is  merely  sentimental  slush,  sloppy  shirking 
of  anything  that  compels  national  alertness,  or 
effort,  or  self -discipline,  or  self-denial;  a  moral 
cowardice  that  pushes  away  any  fact  which  dis 
turbs  a  shallow,  torpid,  irresponsible,  self-indul 
gent  optimism. 

Our  golden  age  of  isolation  is  over.  To  at 
tempt  to  return  to  it  would  be  a  mere  per 
nicious  day-dream.  To  hark  back  to  Washing 
ton's  warning  against  entangling  alliances  is  as 
sensible  as  to  go  by  a  map  of  the  world  made 
in  1796.  We  are  coupled  to  the  company  of 
nations  like  a  car  in  the  middle  of  a  train,  only 
more  inevitably  and  permanently,  for  we  cannot 


44  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

uncouple ;  and  if  we  tried  to  do  so,  we  might  not 
wreck  the  train,  but  we  should  assuredly  wreck 
ourselves.  I  think  the  war  has  brought  us  one 
benefit  certainly :  that  many  young  men  return 
from  Europe  knowing  this,  who  had  no  idea  of 
it  before  they  went,  and  who  know  also  that 
Germany  is  at  heart  an  untamed,  unchanged 
wild  beast,  never  to  be  trusted  again.  We  must 
not,  and  shall  not,  boycott  her  in  trade ;  but  let 
us  not  go  to  sleep  at  the  switch !  Just  as 
busily  as  she  is  baking  pottery  opposite  Coblenz, 
labelled  "made  in  St.  Louis,"  "made  in  Kansas 
City,"  her  "army  of  spies"  is  at  work  here  and 
everywhere  to  undermine  those  nations  who 
have  for  the  moment  delayed  her  plans  for  world 
dominion.  I  think  the  number  of  Americans 
who  know  this  has  increased ;  but  no  American, 
wherever  he  lives,  need  travel  far  from  home  to 
meet  fellow  Americans  who  sing  the  song  of  slush 
about  forgiving  and  forgetting. 

Perhaps  the  man  I  heard  talking  in  front  of 
the  bulletin  board  was  one  of  the  "army  of 
spies,"  as  I  like  to  infer  from  his  absence  of 
"come-back."  But  perhaps  he  was  merely  an 
innocent  American  who  at  school  had  studied, 


"MY  ARMY  OF  SPIES"  45 

for  instance,  Eggleston's  history;  thoughtless  - 
but  by  no  means  harmless ;  for  his  school-taught 
"slant"  against  England,  in  the  days  we  were 
living  through  then,  amounted  to  a  "slant"  for 
Germany.  He  would  be  sorry  if  Germany  beat 
France,  but  not  if  she  beat  England  —  when 
France  and  England  were  joined  in  keeping  the 
wolf  not  only  from  their  door  but  from  ours ! 
It  matters  not  in  the  least  that  they  were  fighting 
our  battle,  not  because  they  wanted  to,  but  be 
cause  they  couldn't  help  it :  they  were  fighting  it 
just  the  same.  That  they  were  compelled  doesn't 
matter,  any  more  than  it  matters  that  in  going 
to  war  when  Belgium  was  invaded,  England's  duty 
and  England's  self-interest  happened  to  coincide. 
Our  duty  and  our  interest  also  coincided  when 
we  entered  the  war  and  joined  England  and 
France.  Have  we  seemed  to  think  that  this 
diminished  our  glory?  Have  they  seemed  to 
think  that  it  absolved  them  from  gratitude  ? 

Such  talk  as  that  man's  in  front  of  the  bulletin 
board  helped  Germany  then,  whether  he  meant 
to  or  not,  just  as  much  as  if  a  spy  had  said  it  — 
just  as  much  as  similar  talk  against  England 
to-day,  whether  by  spies  or  unheeding  Americans, 


46  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

helps  the  Germany  of  to-morrow.  The  Germany 
of  yesterday  had  her  spies  all  over  France  and 
Italy,  busily  suggesting  to  rustic  uninformed  peas 
ants  that  we  had  gone  to  France  for  conquest 
of  France,  and  intended  to  keep  some  of  her  land. 
What  is  she  telling  them  now?  I  don't  know. 
Something  to  her  advantage  and  their  disad 
vantage,  you  may  be  sure,  just  as  she  is  busy 
suggesting  to  us  things  to  her  advantage  and 
our  disadvantage  —  jealousy  and  fear  of  the 
British  navy,  or  pro-German  school  histories  for 
our  children,  or  that  we  can't  make  dyes,  or 
whatever  you  please  :  the  only  sure  thing  is,  that 
the  Germany  of  yesterday  is  the  Germany  of 
to-morrow.  She  is  not  changed.  She  will  not 
change.  The  steady  stream  of  her  propaganda 
all  over  the  world  proves  it.  No  matter  how 
often  her  masquerading  government  changes 
costumes,  that  costume  is  merely  her  device  to 
conceal  the  same  cunning,  treacherous  wild 
beast  that  in  1914,  after  forty  years  of  prepara 
tion,  sprang  at  the  throat  of  the  world.  Of  all 
the  nations  in  the  late  war,  she  alone  is  pulling 
herself  together.  She  is  hard  at  work.  She 
means  to  spring  again  just  as  soon  as  she  can. 


"MY  ARMY  OF  SPIES"  47 

Did  you  read  the  letter  written  in  April  of 
1919  by  her  Vice-Chancellor,  Mathias  Erzberger, 
also  her  minister  of  finance?  A  very  able,  com 
pact  masterpiece  of  malignant  voracity,  good 
enough  to  do  credit  to  Satan.  Through  that  lucky 
flaw  of  stupidity  which  runs  through  apparently 
every  German  brain,  and  to  which  we  chiefly 
owe  our  victory  and  temporary  respite  from  the 
fangs  of  the  wolf,  Mathias  Erzberger  posted  his 
letter.  It  went  wrong  in  the  mails.  If  you  de 
sire  to  read  the  whole  of  it,  the  International 
News  Bureau  can  either  furnish  it  or  put  you  on 
the  track  of  it.  One  sentence  from  it  shall  be 
quoted  here : 

"We  will  undertake  the  restoration  of  Russia, 
and  in  possession  of  such  support  will  be  ready, 
within  ten  or  fifteen  years,  to  bring  France,  with 
out  any  difficulty,  into  our  power.  The  march 
towards  Paris  will  be  easier  than  in  1914.  The 
last  step  but  one  towards  the  world  dominion 
will  then  be  reached.  The  continent  is  ours. 
Afterwards  will  follow  the  last  stage,  the  closing 
struggle,  between  the  continent  and  the  over 


seas." 


Who  is  meant  by  " overseas"?     Is  there  left 


48  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

any  honest  American  brain  so  fond  and  so 
feeble  as  to  suppose  that  we  are  not  included 
in  that  highly  suggestive  and  significant  term? 
I  fear  that  some  such  brains  are  left. 

Germans  remain  German.  I  was  talking  with 
an  American  officer  just  returned  from  Coblenz. 
He  described  the  surprise  of  the  Germans  when 
they  saw  our  troops  march  in  to  occupy  that 
region  of  their  country.  They  said  to  him : 
"But  this  is  extraordinary.  Where  do  these 
soldiers  of  yours  come  from?  You  have  only 
150,000  troops  in  Europe.  All  the  other  trans 
ports  were  sunk  by  our  submarines."  "We  have 
two  million  troops  in  Europe/'  replied  the  officer, 
"and  lost  by  explosion  a  very  few  hundred.  No 
transport  was  sunk."  "But  that  is  impossible," 
returned  the  burgher,  "we  know  from  our  Gov 
ernment  at  Berlin  that  you  have  only  150,000 
troops  in  Europe." 

Germans  remain  German.  At  Coblenz  they 
were  servile,  cringing,  fawning,  ready  to  lick  the 
boots  of  the  Americans,  loading  them  with  offers 
of  every  food  and  drink  and  joy  they  had.  Thus 
they  began.  Soon,  finding  that  the  Americans 
did  not  cut  their  throats,  burn  their  houses,  rape 


"MY  ARMY  OF  SPIES"  49 

their  daughters,  or  bayonet  their  babies,  but 
were  quiet,  civil,  disciplined,  and  apparently  harm 
less,  they  changed.  Their  fawning  faded  away, 
they  scowled  and  muttered.  One  day  the  Burgo 
master  at  a  certain  place  replied  to  some  ordinary 
requisitions  with  an  arrogant  refusal.  It  was 
quite  out  of  the  question,  he  said,  to  comply 
with  any  such  ridiculous  demands.  Then  the 
Americans  ceased  to  seem  harmless.  Certain 
steps  were  taken  by  the  commanding  officer,  some 
leading  citizens  were  collected  and  enlightened 
through  the  only  channel  whereby  light  pene 
trates  a  German  skull.  Thus,  by  a  very  slight 
taste  of  the  methods  by  which  they  thought 
they  would  cow  the  rest  of  the  world,  these 
burghers  were  cowed  instantly.  They  had 
thought  the  Americans  afraid  of  them.  They 
had  taken  civility  for  fear.  Suddenly  they  en 
countered  what  we  call  the  swift  kick.  It  edu 
cated  them.  It  always  will.  Nothing  else  will. 

Mathias  Erzberger  will,  of  course,  disclaim 
his  letter.  He  will  say  it  is  a  forgery.  He  will 
point  to  the  protestations  of  German  repentance 
and  reform  with  which  he  sweated  during  April, 
1919,  and  throughout  the  weeks  preceding  the 


50  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

delivery  of  the  Treaty  at  Versailles.  Perhaps 
he  has  done  this  already.  All  Germans  will 
believe  him  —  and  some  Americans. 

The  German  method,  the  German  madness  — 
what  a  mixture !  The  method  just  grazed  making 
Germany  owner  of  the  earth,  the  madness  saved 
the  earth.  With  perfect  recognition  of  Bel 
gium's  share,  of  Russia's  share,  of  France's, 
Italy's,  England's,  our  own,  in  winning  the  war, 
I  believe  that  the  greatest  and  most  efficient  Ally 
of  all  who  contributed  to  Germany's  defeat  was 
her  own  constant  blundering  madness.  Americans 
must  never  forget  either  the  one  or  the  other, 
and  too  many  are  trying  to  forget  both. 

Germans  remain  German.  An  American  lady 
of  my  acquaintance  was  about  to  climb  from 
Amalfi  to  Ravello  in  company  with  a  German  lady 
of  her  acquaintance.  The  German  lady  had  a 
German  Baedeker,  the  American  a  Baedeker  in 
English,  published  several  years  apart.  The 
Baedeker  in  German  recommended  a  path  that 
went  straight  up  the  ascent,  the  Baedeker  in 
English  a  path  that  went  up  more  gradually 
around  it.  "Mine  says  this  is  the  best  way," 
said  the  American.  "Mine  says  straight  up 


"MY  ARMY  OF  SPIES"  -51 

is  the  best,"  said  the  German.  "But  mine  is 
a  later  edition/'  said  the  American.  "That 
is  not  it,"  explained  the  German.  "It  is  that 
we  Germans  are  so  much  more  clever  and  agile, 
that  to  us  is  recommended  the  more  dangerous 
way  while  Americans  are  shown  the  safe  path." 

That  happened  in  1910.     That  is  Kultur.     This 
too  is  Kultur: 

"If  Silesia  become  Polish 
Then,  oh  God,  may  children  perish,  like  beasts,  in  their 

mothers'  womb. 

Then  lame  their  Polish  feet  and  their  hands,  oh  God! 
Let  them  be  crippled  and  blind  their  eyes. 
Smite  them  with  dumbness  and  madness,  both  men   and 
women." 

From  a  Hymn  of  German  hate  for  the  Poles. 

Germany  remains  German ;  but  when  next  she 
springs,  she  will  make  no  blunders. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   ANCIENT   GRUDGE 

IT  was  in  Broad  Street,  Philadelphia,  before 
we  went  to  war,  that  I  overheard  the  foolish  — 
or  propagandist  —  slur  upon  England  in  front  of 
the  bulletin  board.  After  we  were  fighting  by 
England's  side  for  our  existence,  you  might  have 
supposed  such  talk  would  cease.  It  did  not. 
And  after  the  Armistice,  it  continued.  On  the 
day  we  celebrated  as  "  British  Day,"  a  man  went 
through  the  crowd  in  Wanamaker's  shop,  asking, 
What  had  England  done  in  the  War,  anyhow? 
Was  he  a  German,  or  an  Irishman,  or  an  American 
in  pay  of  Berlin?  I  do  not  know.  But  this  I 
know :  perfectly  good  Americans  still  talk  like 
that.  Cowboys  in  camp  do  it.  Men  and  women 
in  Eastern  cities,  persons  with  at  least  the  external 
trappings  of  educated  intelligence,  play  into  the 
hands  of  the  Germany  of  to-morrow,  do  their 

unconscious  little  bit  of  harm  to  the  future  of 

55 


56  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

freedom  and  civilization,  by  repeating  that  Eng 
land  "has  always  been  our  enemy."  Then  they 
mention  the  Revolution,  the  War  of  1812,  and 
England's  attitude  during  our  Civil  War,  just  as 
they  invariably  mentioned  these  things  in  1917 
and  1918,  when  England  was  our  ally  in  a  struggle 
for  life,  and  as  they  will  be  mentioning  them  in 
1940,  I  presume,  if  they  are  still  alive  at  that 
time. 

Now,  the  Civil  War  ended  fifty-five  years 
ago,  the  War  of  1812  one  hundred  and  five,  and 
the  Revolution  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven. 
Suppose,  while  the  Kaiser  was  butchering  Belgium 
because  she  barred  his  way  to  that  dinner  he  was 
going  to  eat  in  Paris  in  October,  1914,  that  France 
had  said,  "  England  is  my  hereditary  enemy. 
Henry  the  Fifth  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and 
sundry  Plantagenets  fought  me";  and  suppose 
England  had  said,  "I  don't  care  much  for  France. 
Joan  of  Arc  and  Napoleon  and  sundry  other 
French  fought  me"  -suppose  they  had  sat 
nursing  their  ancient  grudges  like  that?  Well, 
the  Kaiser  would  have  dined  in  Paris  according 
to  his  plan.  And  next,  according  to  his  plan, 
with  the  Channel  ports  taken  he  would  have 


THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE  57 

dined  in  London.  And  finally,  according  to  his 
plan,  and  with  the  help  of  his  "army  of  spies" 
overseas,  he  would  have  dined  in  New  York  and 
the  White  House.  For  German  madness  could 
not  have  defeated  Germany's  plan  of  World 
dominion,  if  various  nations  had  not  got  together 
and  assisted.  Other  Americans  there  are,  who 
do  not  resort  to  the  Revolution  for  their  grudge, 
but  are  in  a  commercial  rage  over  this  or  that : 
wool,  for  instance.  Let  such  Americans  reflect 
that  commercial  grievances  against  England  can 
be  more  readily  adjusted  than  an  absorption  of 
all  commerce  by  Germany  can  be  adjusted. 
Wool  and  everything  else  will  belong  to  Mathias 
Erzberger  and  his  breed,  if  they  carry  out  their 
intention.  And  the  way  to  insure  their  carry 
ing  it  out  is  to  let  them  split  us  and  England  and 
all  their  competitors  asunder  by  their  ceaseless 
and  ingenious  propaganda,  which  plays  upon 
every  international  prejudice,  historic,  commer 
cial,  or  other,  which  is  available.  After  August, 
1914,  England  barred  the  Kaiser's  way  to  New 
York,  and  in  1917,  we  found  it  useful  to  forget 
about  George  the  Third  and  the  Alabama.  In 
1853  Prussia  possessed  one  ship  of  war  —  her  first. 


58  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

In  1918  her  submarines  were  prowling  along  our 
coast.  For  the  moment  they  are  no  longer  there. 
For  a  while  they  may  not  be.  But  do  you  think 
Germany  intends  that  scraps  of  paper  shall  be 
abolished  by  any  Treaty,  even  though  it  contain 
80,000  words  and  a  League  of  Nations?  She 
will  make  of  that  Treaty  a  whole  basket  of  scraps, 
if  she  can,  and  as  soon  as  she  can.  She  has  said 
so.  Her  workingmen  are  at  work,  industrious 
and  content  with  a  quarter  the  pay  for  a  longer 
day  than  anywhere  else.  Let  those  persons  who 
cannot  get  over  George  the  Third  and  the  Ala- 
bama  ponder  upon  this  for  a  minute  or  two. 


CHAPTER  VI 
WHO   IS  WITHOUT   SIN? 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHO   IS   WITHOUT   SIN? 

MUCH  else  is  there  that  it  were  well  they  should 
ponder,  and  I  am  coming  to  it  presently ;  but 
first,  one  suggestion.  Most  of  us,  if  we  dig  back 
only  fifty  or  sixty  or  seventy  years,  can  disinter 
various  relatives  over  whose  doings  we  should  pre 
fer  to  glide  lightly  and  in  silence. 

Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  have  none? 
Nobody  stained  with  any  shade  of  dishonor  ?  No 
grandfather,  great-grandfather,  great-great-etc. 
grandfather  or  grandmother  who  ever  made  a 
scandal,  broke  a  heart,  or  betrayed  a  trust? 
Every  man  Jack  and  woman  Jill  of  the  lot 
right  back  to  Adam  and  Eve  wholly  good,  honor 
able,  and  courageous?  How  fortunate  to  be 
sprung  exclusively  from  the  loins  of  centuries  of 
angels  —  and  to  know  all  about  them !  Consider 
the  hoard  of  virtue  to  which  you  have  fallen  heir ! 

But  you  know  very  well  that  this  is  not  so ; 
that  every  one  of  us  has  every  kind  of  person 

61 


62  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

for  an  ancestor ;  that  all  sorts  of  virtue  and  vice, 
of  heroism  and  disgrace,  are  mingled  in  our  blood ; 
that  inevitably  amidst  the  huge  herd  of  our  grand- 
sires  black  sheep  as  well  as  white  are  to  be  found. 

As  it  is  with  men,  so  it  is  with  nations.  Do 
you  imagine  that  any  nation  has  a  spotless 
history?  Do  you  think  that  you  can  peer  into 
our  past,  turn  over  the  back  pages  of  our  record, 
and  never  come  upon  a  single  blot?  Indeed 
you  cannot.  And  it  is  better  —  a  great  deal 
better  —  that  you  should  be  aware  of  these  blots. 
Such  knowledge  may  enlighten  you,  may  make 
you  a  better  American.  What  we  need  is  to 
be  critics  of  ourselves,  and  this  is  exactly  what 
we  have  been  taught  not  to  be. 

We  are  quite  good  enough  to  look  straight  at 
ourselves.  Owing  to  one  thing  and  another  we 
are  cleaner,  honester,  humaner,  and  whiter  than 
any  people  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  If  any 
nation  on  the  continent  of  Europe  has  ever  be 
haved  with  the  generosity  and  magnanimity 
that  we  have  shown  to  Cuba,  I  have  yet  to  learn 
of  it.  They  jeered  at  us  about  Cuba,  did  the 
Europeans  of  the  continent.  Their  papers  stuck 
their  tongues  in  their  cheeks.  Of  course  our  fine 


WHO  IS  WITHOUT  SIN?  68 

sentiments  were  all  sham,  they  said.  Of  course 
we  intended  to  swallow  Cuba,  and  never  had 
intended  anything  else.  And  when  General 
Leonard  Wood  came  away  from  Cuba,  having 
made  Havana  healthy,  having  brought  order  out 
of  chaos  on  the  island,  and  we  left  Cuba  independ 
ent,  Europe  jeered  on.  That  dear  old  Europe ! 

Again,  in  1909,  it  was  not  any  European  nation 
that  returned  to  China  their  share  of  the  in 
demnity  exacted  in  consequence  of  the  Boxer 
troubles ;  we  alone  returned  our  share  to  China  — 
sixteen  millions.  It  was  we  who  prevented  levy 
ing  a  punitive  indemnity  on  China.  Read  the 
whole  story ;  there  is  much  more.  We  played  the 
gentleman,  Europe  played  the  bully.  But  Europe 
calls  us  "dollar  chasers."  That  dear  old  Europe ! 
Again,  if  any  conquering  General  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  ever  behaved  as  Grant  did  to  Lee  at 
Appomattox,  his  name  has  escaped  me. 

Again,  and  lastly  —  though  I  am  not  attempting 
to  tell  you  here  the  whole  tale  of  our  decencies : 
Whose  hands  came  away  cleanest  from  that  Peace 
Conference  in  Paris  lately  ?  What  did  we  ask  for 
ourselves?  Everything  we  asked,  save  some 
repairs  of  damage,  was  for  other  people.  Oh, 


64  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

yes  !  we  are  quite  good  enough  to  keep  quiet  about 
these  things.  No  need  whatever  to  brag.  Brag 
ging,  moreover,  inclines  the  listener  to  suspect 
you're  not  so  remarkable  as  you  sound. 

But  all  this  virtue  doesn't  in  the  least  alter  the 
fact  that  we're  like  everybody  else  in  having  some 
dirty  pages  in  our  History.  These  pages  it  is  a 
foolish  mistake  to  conceal.  I  suppose  that  the 
school  histories  of  every  nation  are  partly  bad. 
I  imagine  that  most  of  them  implant  the  germ  of 
international  hatred  in  the  boys  and  girls  who 
have  to  study  them.  Nations  do  not  like  each 
other,  never  have  liked  each  other;  and  it  may 
very  well  be  that  school  textbooks  help  this 
inclination  to  dislike.  Certainly  we  know  what 
contempt  and  hatred  for  other  nations  the 
Germans  have  been  sedulously  taught  in  their 
schools,  and  how  utterly  they  believed  their 
teaching.  How  much  better  and  wiser  for  the 
whole  world  if  all  the  boys  and  girls  in  all  the 
schools  everywhere  were  henceforth  to  be  started 
in  life  with  a  just  and  true  notion  of  all  flags  and 
the  peoples  over  whom  they  fly !  The  League  of 
Nations  might  not  then  rest  upon  the  quicksand 
of  distrust  and  antagonism  which  it  rests  upon 


WHO  IS  WITHOUT  SIN?  65 

to-day.  But  it  is  our  own  school  histories  that 
are  my  present  concern,  and  I  repeat  my  opinion  — 
or  rather  my  conviction  —  that  the  way  in  which 
they  have  concealed  the  truth  from  us  is  worse 
than  silly,  it  is  harmful.  I  am  not  going  to  take 
up  the  whole  list  of  their  misrepresentations,  I 
will  put  but  one  or  two  questions  to  you. 

When  you  finished  school,  what  idea  had  you 
about  the  War  of  1812?  I  will  tell  you  what 
mine  was.  I  thought  we  had  gone  to  war  because 
England  was  stopping  American  ships  and  taking 
American  sailors  out  of  them  for  her  own  service. 
I  could  refer  to  Perry's  victory  on  Lake  Erie  and 
Jackson's  smashing  of  the  British  at  New  Orleans ; 
the  name  of  the  frigate  Constitution  sent  thrills 
through  me.  And  we  had  pounded  old  John 
Bull  and  sent  him  to  the  right  about  a  second 
time !  Such  was  my  glorious  idea,  and  there 
it  stopped.  Did  you  know  much  more  than 
that  about  it  when  your  schooling  was  done? 
Did  you  know  that  our  reasons  for  declaring 
war  against  Great  Britain  in  1812  were  not  so 
strong  as  they  had  been  three  and  four  years 
earlier?  That  during  those  years  England  had 
moderated  her  arrogance,  was  ready  to  moderate 


66  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

further,  had  placated  us  for  her  brutal  performance 
concerning  the  Chesapeake,  wanted  peace;  while 
we,  who  had  been  nearly  unanimous  for  war,  and 
with  a  fuller  purse  in  1808,  were  now,  by  our  own 
congressional  fuddling  and  messing,  without  any 
adequate  army,  and  so  divided  in  counsel  that 
only  one  northern  state  was  wholly  in  favor  of 
war?  Did  you  know  that  our  General  Hull  be 
gan  by  invading  Canada  from  Detroit  and  sur 
rendered  his  whole  army  without  firing  a  shot? 
That  the  British  overran  Michigan  and  parts  of 
Ohio,  and  western  New  York,  while  we  retreated 
disgracefully  ?  That  though  we  shone  in  victories 
of  single  combat  on  the  sea  and  showed  the  English 
that  we  too  knew  how  to  sail  and  fight  on  the 
waves  as  hardily  as  Britannia  (we  won  eleven 
out  of  thirteen  of  the  frigate  and  sloop  actions), 
nevertheless  she  caught  us  or  blocked  us  up,  and 
rioted  unchecked  along  our  coasts  ?  You  probably 
did  know  that  the  British  burned  Washington, 
and  you  accordingly  hated  them  for  this  bar 
barous  vandalism  —  but  did  you  know  that  we 
had  burned  Toronto  a  year  earlier  ? 

I  left  school  knowing  none  of  this  —  it  wasn't 
in  my  school  book,  and  I  learned  it  in  mature  years 


WHO  IS  WITHOUT  SIN?  67 

with  amazement.  I  then  learned  also  that  England, 
while  she  was  fighting  with  us,  had  her  hands  full 
fighting  Bonaparte,  that  her  war  with  us  was  a  side 
show,  and  that  this  was  uncommonly  lucky  for 
us  —  as  lucky  quite  as  those  ships  from  France 
under  Admiral  de  Grasse,  without  whose  help 
Washington  could  never  have  caught  Cornwallis 
and  compelled  his  surrender  at  Yorktown,  Octo 
ber  19,  1781.  Did  you  know  that  there  were 
more  French  soldiers  and  sailors  than  Americans 
at  Yorktown?  Is  it  well  to  keep  these  things 
from  the  young  ?  I  have  not  done  with  the  War 
of  1812.  There  is  a  political  aspect  of  it  that  I 
shall  later  touch  upon  —  something  that  my 
school  books  never  mentioned. 

My  next  question  is,  what  did  you  know  about 
the  Mexican  War  of  1846-1847,  when  you  came 
out  of  school?  The  names  of  our  victories,  I 
presume,  and  of  Zachary  Taylor  and  Winfield 
Scott;  and  possibly  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe 
Hidalgo,  whereby  Mexico  ceded  to  us  the  whole 
of  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  Upper  California, 
and  we  paid  her  fifteen  millions.  No  doubt 
you  know  that  Santa  Anna,  the  Mexican  General, 
had  a  wooden  leg.  Well,  there  is  more  to  know 


68  A   STRAIGHT   DEAL 

than  that,  and  I  found  it  out  much  later.  I  found 
out  that  General  Grant,  who  had  fought  with 
credit  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  Mexican  War,  briefly 
summarized  it  as  " iniquitous."  I  gradually, 
through  my  reading  as  a  man,  learned  the  truth 
about  the  Mexican  War  which  had  not  been 
taught  me  as  a  boy  —  that  in  that  war  we  bullied 
a  weaker  power,  that  we  made  her  our  victim, 
that  the  whole  discreditable  business  had  the 
extension  of  slavery  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  that 
more  Americans  were  against  it  than  had  been 
against  the  War  of  1812.  But  how  many  Ameri 
cans  ever  learn  these  things?  Do  not  most  of 
them,  upon  leaving  school,  leave  history  also 
behind  them,  and  become  farmers,  or  merchants, 
or  plumbers,  or  firemen,  or  carpenters,  or  what 
ever,  and  read  little  but  the  morning  paper  for 
the  rest  of  their  lives? 

The  blackest  page  in  our  history  would  take  a 
long  while  to  read.  Not  a  word  of  it  did  I  ever 
see  in  my  school  textbooks.  They  were  written 
on  the  plan  that  America  could  do  no  wrong.  I 
repeat  that,  just  as  we  love  our  friends  in  spite 
of  their  faults,  and  all  the  more  intelligently 
because  we  know  these  faults,  so  our  love  of  our 


WHO  IS  WITHOUT  SIN?  69 

country  would  be  just  as  strong,  and  far  more 
intelligent,  were  we  honestly  and  wisely  taught 
in  our  early  years  those  acts  and  policies  of  hers 
wherein  she  fell  below  her  lofty  and  humane 
ideals.  Her  character  and  her  record  on  the  whole 
from  the  beginning  are  fine  enough  to  allow  the 
shadows  to  throw  the  sunlight  into  relief.  To  have 
produced  at  three  stages  of  our  growth  three  such 
men  as  Washington,  Lincoln,  and  Roosevelt,  is 
quite  sufficient  justification  for  our  existence. 


CHAPTER  VII 
TARRED   WITH  THE   SAME   STICK 


CHAPTER  VII 

TAKRED   WITH   THE    SAME   STICK 

THE  blackest  page  in  our  history  is  our  treat 
ment  of  the  Indian.  To  speak  of  it  is  a  thank 
less  task  —  thankless,  and  necessary. 

This  land  was  the  Indian's  house,  not  ours. 
He  was  here  first,  nobody  knows  how  many 
centuries  first.  We  arrived,  and  we  shoved  him, 
and  shoved  him,  and  shoved  him,  back,  and 
back,  and  back.  Treaty  after  treaty  we  made 
with  him,  and  broke.  We  drew  circles  round  his 
freedom,  smaller  and  smaller.  We  allowed  him 
such  and  such  territory,  then  took  it  away  and 
gave  him  less  and  worse  in  exchange.  Through 
out  a  century  our  promises  to  him  were  a  whole 
basket  of  scraps  of  paper.  The  other  day  I  saw 
some  Indians  in  California.  It  had  once  been 
their  place.  All  over  that  region  they  had  hunted 
and  fished  and  lived  according  to  their  desires, 
enjoying  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
We  came.  To-day  the  hunting  and  fishing  are 

73 


74  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

restricted  by  our  laws  —  not  the  Indian's  — 
because  we  wasted  and  almost  exterminated  in  a 
very  short  while  what  had  amply  provided  the 
Indian  with  sport  and  food  for  a  very  long  while. 
In  that  region  we  have  taken,  as  usual,  the  fertile 
land  and  the  running  water,  and  have  allotted 
land  to  the  Indian  where  neither  wood  nor  water 
exist,  no  crops  will  grow,  no  human  life  can  be 
supported.  I  have  seen  the  land.  I  have  seen 
the  Indian  begging  at  the  back  door.  Oh,  yes, 
they  were  an ' '  inferior  race . "  Oh ,  yes,  they  didn '  t 
and  couldn't  use  the  land  to  the  best  advantage, 
couldn't  build  Broadway  and  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad,  couldn't  improve  real  estate.  If  you 
choose  to  call  the  whole  thing  " manifest  destiny," 
I  am  with  you.  I'll  not  dispute  that  what  we 
have  made  this  continent  is  of  greater  service  to 
mankind  than  the  wilderness  of  the  Indian  ever 
could  possibly  have  been  —  once  conceding,  as 
you  have  to  concede,  the  inevitableness  of  civiliza 
tion.  Neither  you,  nor  I,  nor  any  man,  can  re 
mold  the  sorry  scheme  of  things  entire.  But  we 
could  have  behaved  better  to  the  Indian.  That 
was  in  our  power.  And  we  gave  him  a  raw  deal 
instead,  not  once,  but  again  and  again.  We  did 


TARRED  WITH  THE  SAME  STICK  75 

it  because  we  could  do  it  without  risk,  because  he 
was  weaker  and  we  could  always  beat  him  in  the 
end.  And  all  the  while  we  were  doing  it,  there 
was  our  Bill  of  Rights,  our  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  founded  on  a  new  thing  in  the  world, 
proclaiming  to  mankind  the  fairest  hope  yet  born, 
that  "All  men  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights, "  and  that  these  were 
now  to  be  protected  by  law.  Ah,  no,  look  at  it 
as  you  will,  it  is  a  black  page,  a  raw  deal.  The 
officers  of  our  frontier  army  know  all  about  it, 
because  they  saw  it  happen.  They  saw  the 
treaties  broken,  the  thieving  agents,  the  tres 
passing  settlers,  the  outrages  that  goaded  the 
deceived  Indian  to  despair  and  violence,  and  when 
they  were  ordered  out  to  kill  him,  they  knew  that 
he  had  struck  in  self-defense  and  was  the  real 
victim. 

It  is  too  late  to  do  much  about  it  now.  The 
good  people  of  the  Indian  Rights  Association  try 
to  do  something ;  but  in  spite  of  them,  what  little 
harm  can  still  be  done  is  being  done  through  dis 
honest  Indian  agents  and  the  mean  machinery  of 
politics.  If  you  care  to  know  more  of  the  long, 
bad  story,  there  is  a  book  by  Helen  Hunt  Jackson, 


76  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

A  Century  of  Dishonor;  it  is  not  new.  It  as 
sembles  and  sets  forth  what  had  been  perpetrated 
up  to  the  time  when  it  was  written.  A  second 
volume  could  be  added  now. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  matter  here  for  a  very 
definite  reason,  closely  connected  with  my  main 
purpose.  It's  a  favorite  trick  of  our  anti-British 
friends  to  call  England  a  "land-grabber."  The 
way  in  which  England  has  grabbed  land  right 
along,  all  over  the  world,  is  monstrous,  they  say. 
England  has  stolen  what  belonged  to  whites,  and 
blacks,  and  bronzes,  and  yellows,  wherever  she 
could  lay  her  hands  upon  it,  they  say.  England 
is  a  criminal.  They  repeat  this  with  great  satis 
faction,  this  land-grabbing  indictment.  Most  of 
them  know  little  or  nothing  of  the  facts,  couldn't 
tell  you  the  history  of  a  single  case.  But  what 
are  the  facts  to  the  man  who  asks,  "What  has 
England  done  in  this  war,  anyway?"  The  word 
"land-grabber"  has  been  passed  to  him  by 
German  and  Sinn  Fein  propaganda,  and  he  merely 
parrots  it  forth.  He  couldn't  discuss  it  at  all. 
"Look  at  the  Boers,"  he  may  know  enough  to 
reply,  if  you  remind  him  that  England's  land- 
grabbing  was  done  a  good  while  ago.  Well,  we 


TARRED  WITH  THE  SAME  STICK  77 

shall  certainly  look  at  the  Boers  in  due  time,  but 
just  now  we  must  look  at  ourselves.  I  suppose 
that  the  American  who  denounces  England  for 
her  land-grabbing  has  forgotten,  or  else  has  never 
known,  how  we  grabbed  Florida  from  Spain.  The 
pittance  that  we  paid  Spain  in  one  of  the  Florida 
transactions  never  went  to  her.  The  story  is  a 
plain  tale  of  land-grabbing ;  and  there  are  several 
other  plain  tales  that  show  us  to  have  been 
land-grabbers,  if  you  will  read  the  facts  with  an 
honest  mind.  I  shall  not  tell  them  here.  The 
case  of  the  Indian  is  enough  in  the  way  of  an 
instance.  Our  own  hands  are  by  no  means  clean. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  denounce  England  as  a  land- 
grabber. 

You  cannot  hate  statistics  more  than  I  do.  But 
at  times  there  is  no  dodging  them,  and  this  is  one 
of  the  times.  In  1803  we  paid  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
fifteen  millions  for  what  was  then  called  Louisiana. 
Napoleon  had  his  title  to  this  land  from  Spain. 
Spain  had  it  from  France.  France  had  it  - 
how  ?  She  had  it  because  La  Salle,  a  Frenchman, 
sailed  down  the  Mississippi  River.  This  gave 
him  title  to  the  land.  There  were  people  on  the 
bank  already,  long  before  La  Salle  came  by. 


78  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

It  would  have  surprised  them  to  be  told  that  the 
land  was  no  longer  theirs  because  a  man  had  come 
by  on  the  water.  But  nobody  did  tell  them. 
They  were  Indians.  They  had  wives  and  children 
and  wigwams  and  other  possessions  in  the  land 
where  they  had  always  lived ;  but  they  were  red, 
and  the  man  in  the  boat  was  white,  and  therefore 
they  were  turned  into  trespassers  because  he  had 
sailed  by  in  a  boat.  That  was  the  title  to  Loui 
siana  which  we  bought  from  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 
The  Louisiana  Purchase  was  a  piece  of  land 
running  up  the  Mississippi,  up  the  Missouri, 
over  the  Divide,  and  down  the  Columbia  to  the 
Pacific.  Before  we  acquired  it,  our  area  was  over 
a  quarter,  but  not  half,  a  million  square  miles. 
This  added  nearly  a  million  square  miles  more. 
But  what  had  we  really  bought?  Nothing  but 
stolen  goods.  The  Indians  were  there  before 
La  Salle,  from  whose  boat-sailing  the  title  we 
bought  was  derived.  "But,"  you  may  object, 
"when  whites  rob  reds  or  blacks,  we  call  it  Dis 
covery  ;  land-grabbing  is  when  whites  rob  whites 
—  and  that  is  where  I  blame  England."  For 
the  sake  of  argument  I  concede  'this,  and  refer 
you  to  our  acquisition  of  Texas.  This  operation 


TARRED  WITH  THE  SAME  STICK  79 

followed  some  years  after  the  Florida  operation. 
"By  request"  we  " annexed "  most  of  present 
Texas  —  in  1845.  That  was  a  trick  of  our  slave 
holders.  They  sent  people  into  Texas  and  these 
people  swung  the  deal.  It  was  virtually  a  theft 
from  Mexico.  A  little  while  later,  in  1848,  we 
"paid"  Mexico  for  California,  Arizona,  and 
Nevada.  But  if  you  read  the  true  story  of  Fre"- 
mont  in  California,  and  of  the  American  plots 
there  before  the  Mexican  War,  to  undermine  the 
government  of  a  friendly  nation,  plots  connived 
at  in  Washington  with  a  view  to  getting  California 
for  ourselves,  upon  my  word  you  will  find  it  hard 
to  talk  of  England  being  a  land-grabber  and  keep 
a  straight  face.  And,  were  a  certain  book  to  fall 
into  your  hands,  the  narrative  of  the  Alcalde  of 
Monterey,  wherein  he  sets  down  what  of  Fremont's 
doings  in  California  went  on  before  his  eyes,  you 
would  learn  a  story  of  treachery,  brutality,  and 
greed.  All  this  acquisition  of  territory,  together 
with  the  Gadsden  Purchase  a  few  years  later, 
brought  our  continent  to  its  present  area  —  not 
counting  Alaska  or  some  islands  later  acquired  — 
2,970,230  square  miles. 
Please  understand  me  very  clearly:  I  am  not 


80  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

saying  that  it  has  not  been  far  better  for  the 
world  and  for  civilization  that  we  should  have 
become  the  rulers  of  all  this  land,  instead  of  its 
being  ruled  by  the-  Indians  or  by  Spain,  or  by 
Mexico.  That  is  not  at  all  the  point.  I  am 
merely  reminding  you  of  the  means  whereby  we 
got  the  land.  We  got  it  mostly  by  force  and 
fraud,  by  driving  out  of  it  through  firearms  and 
plots  people  who  certainly  were  there  first  and 
who  were  weaker  than  ourselves.  Our  reason 
was  simply  that  we  wanted  it  and  intended  to 
have  it.  That  is  precisely  what  England  has 
done.  She  has  by  various  means  not  one  whit 
better  or  worse  than  ours,  acquired  her  possessions 
in  various  parts  of  the  world  because  they  were 
necessary  to  her  safety  and  welfare,  just  as  this 
continent  was  necessary  to  our  safety  and  welfare. 
Moreover,  the  pressure  upon  her,  her  necessity  for 
self-preservation,  was  far  more  urgent  than  was 
the  pressure  upon  us.  To  make  you  see  this,  I 
must  once  again  resort  to  some  statistics. 

England's  area  —  herself  and  adjacent  islands 

-is   120,832   square  miles.     Her  population   in 

1811   was   eighteen   and   one  half   millions.     At 

that   same   time   our   area  was  408,895   square 


TARRED  WITH  THE  SAME  STICK  81 

miles,  not  counting  the  recent  Louisiana  Purchase. 
And  our  population  was  7,239,881.  With  an 
area  less  than  one  third  of  ours  (excluding  the 
huge  Louisiana)  England  had  a  population  more 
than  twice  as  great.  Therefore  she  was  more 
crowded  than  we  were  —  how  much  more  I  leave 
you  to  figure  out  for  yourself.  I  appeal  to  the 
fair-minded  American  reader  who  only  "  wants 
to  be  shown, "  and  I  say  to  him,  when  some  German 
or  anti-British  American  talks  to  him  about  what 
a  land-grabber  England  has  been  in  her  time,  to 
think  of  these  things  and  to  remember  that  our 
own  past  is  tarred  with  the  same  stick.  Let 
every  one  of  us  bear  in  mind  that  little  sentence 
of  the  Kaiser's,  "Even  now  I  rule  supreme  in 
the  United  States;"  let  us  remember  that  the 
Armistice  and  the  Peace  Treaty  do  not  seem  to 
have  altered  German  nature  or  German  plans 
very  noticeably,  and  don't  let  us  muddle  our 
brains  over  the  question  of  the  land  grabbed  by 
the  great-grandfathers  of  present  England. 

Any  American  who  is  anti-British  to-day  is  by 
just  so  much  pro-German,  is  helping  the  trouble 
of  the  world,  is  keeping  discord  alight,  is  doing  his 
bit  against  human  peace  and  human  happiness. 


82  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

There  are  some  other  little  sentences  of  the  Kaiser 
and  his  Huns  of  which  I  shall  speak  before  I 
finish :  we  must  now  take  up  the  controversy 
of  those  men  in  front  of  the  bulletin  board;  we 
must  investigate  what  lies  behind  that  controversy. 
Those  two  men  are  types.  One  had  learned 
nothing  since  he  left  school,  the  other  had. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HISTORY   ASTIGMATIC 

So  far  as  I  know,  it  was  Mr.  Sydney  George 
Fisher,  an  American,  who  was  the  first  to  go  back 
to  the  original  documents,  and  to  write  from  a 
study  of  these  documents  the  complete  truth 
about  England  and  ourselves  during  the  Revolu 
tion.  His  admirable  book  tore  off  the  cloak  which 
our  school  histories  had  wrapped  round  the  facts. 
He  lays  bare  the  political  state  of  Britain  at  that 
time.  What  did  you  learn  at  your  school  of 
that  political  state?  Did  you  ever  wonder  about 
General  Howe  and  his  manner  of  fighting  us? 
Did  it  ever  strike  you  that,  although  we  were  more 
often  defeated  than  victorious  in  those  engage 
ments  with  him  (and  sometimes  he  even  seemed 
to  avoid  pitched  battles  with  us  when  the  odds 
were  all  in  his  favor),  yet  somehow  England  didn't 
seem  to  reap  the  advantage  she  should  have 
reaped  from  those  contests,  didn't  follow  them  up, 

85 


86  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

let  us  get  away,  didn't  in  short  make  any  progress 
to  speak  of  in  really  conquering  us  ?  Perhaps  you 
attributed  this  to  our  brave  troops  and  our  great 
Washington.  Well,  our  troops  were  brave  and 
Washington  was  great;  but  there  was  more 
behind  —  more  than  your  school  teaching  ever 
led  you  to  suspect,  if  your  schooling  was  like 
mine.  I  imagined  England  as  being  just  one 
whole  unit  of  fury  and  tyranny  directed  against 
us  and  determined  to  stamp  out  the  spark  of 
liberty  we  had  kindled.  No  such  thing!  Eng 
land  was  violently  divided  in  sentiment  about  us. 
Two  parties,  almost  as  opposed  as  our  North  and 
South  have  been  —  only  it  was  not  sectional  in 
England  —  held  very  different  views  about  liberty 
and  the  rights  of  Englishmen.  The  King's  party, 
George  the  Third  and  his  upholders,  were  fighting 
to  saddle  autocracy  upon  England ;  the  other 
party,  that  of  Pitt  and  Burke,  were  resisting 
this,  and  their  sentiments  and  political  beliefs 
led  them  to  sympathize  with  our  revolt  against 
George  III.  "I  rejoice, "  writes  Horace  Walpole, 
Dec.  5,  1777,  to  the  Countess  of  Upper  Ossory, 
"that  the  Americans  are  to  be  free,  as  they 
had  a  right  to  be,  and  as  I  am  sure  they  have 


HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC  87 

shown  they  deserve  to  be.  ...  I  own  there  are 
very  able  Englishmen  left,  but  they  happen  to  be 
on  t'other  side  of  the  Atlantic."  It  was  through 
Whig  influence  that  General  Howe  did  not  follow 
up  his  victories  over  us,  because  they  didn't  wish 
us  to  be  conquered,  they  wished  us  to  be  able  to 
vindicate  the  rights  to  which  they  held  all  English 
men  were  entitled.  These  men  considered  us  the 
champions  of  that  British  liberty  which  George 
III  was  attempting  to  crush.  They  disputed  the 
rightfulness  of  the  Stamp  Act.  When  we  refused 
to  submit  to  the  Stamp  Tax  in  1766,  it  was  then 
that  Pitt  exclaimed  in  Parliament:  "I  rejoice 
that  America  has  resisted.  ...  If  ever  this 
nation  should  have  a  tyrant  for  a  King,  six  millions 
of  freemen,  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of  liberty  as 
voluntarily  to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  be  fit 
instruments  to  make  slaves  of  the  rest."  But 
they  were  not  willing.  When  the  hour  struck  and 
the  war  came,  so  many  Englishmen  were  on  our 
side  that  they  would  not  enlist  against  us,  refused 
to  fight  us,  and  George  III  had  to  go  to  Germany 
and  obtain  Hessians  to  help  him  out.  His  war 
against  us  was  lost  at  home,  on  English  soil, 
through  English  disapproval  of  his  course,  almost 


88  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

as  much  as  it  was  lost  here  through  the  indomi 
table  Washington  and  the  help  of  France.  That 
is  the  actual  state  of  the  case,  there  is  the  truth. 
Did  you  hear  much  about  this  at  school?  Did 
you  ever  learn  there  that  George  III  had  a  fake 
Parliament,  largely  elected  by  fake  votes,  which 
did  not  represent  the  English  people;  that  this 
fake  Parliament  was  autocracy's  last  ditch  in 
England ;  that  it  choked  for  a  time  the  English 
democracy  which,  after  the  setback  given  it  by 
the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution,  went 
forward  again  until  to-day  the  King  of  Eng 
land  has  less  power  than  the  President  of  the 
United  States?  I  suppose  everybody  in  the 
world  who  knows  the  important  steps  of  history 
knows  this  —  except  the  average  American. 
From  him  it  has  been  concealed  by  his  school 
histories;  and  generally  he  never  learns  any 
thing  about  it  at  all,  because  once  out  of  school, 
he  seldom  studies  any  history  again.  But  why, 
you  may  possibly  wonder,  have  our  school 
histories  done  this?  I  think  their  various  au 
thors  may  consciously  or  unconsciously  have  felt 
that  our  case  against  England  was  not  in  truth 
vtry  strong,  that  in  fact  she  had  been  very 


HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC  89 

easy  with  us,  far  easier  than  any  other  country 
was  being  with  its  colonies  at  that  time.  The 
King  of  France  taxed  his  colonies,  the  King  of 
Spain  filled  his  purse,  unhampered,  from  the 
pockets  of  Mexico  and  Peru  and  Cuba  and  Porto 
Rico  —  from  whatever  pocket  into  which  he  could 
put  his  hand,  and  the  Dutch  were  doing  the 
same  without  the  slightest  question  of  their  right 
to  do  it.  Our  quarrel  with  the  mother  country 
and  our  breaking  away  from  her  in  spite  of  the 
extremely  light  rein  she  was  driving  us  with,  rested 
in  reality  upon  very  slender  justification.  If  ever 
our  authors  read  of  the  meeting  between  Franklin, 
Rutledge,  and  Adams  with  General  Howe,  after 
the  Battle  of  Long  Island,  I  think  they  may 
have  felt  that  we  had  almost  no  grievance  at  all. 
The  plain  truth  of  it  was,  we  had  been  allowed  for 
so  long  to  be  so  nearly  free  that  we  determined 
to  be  free  entirely,  no  matter  what  England  con 
ceded.  Therefore  these  authors  of  our  school 
textbooks  felt  that  they  needed  to  bolster  our 
cause  up  for  the  benefit  of  the  young.  Accord 
ingly  our  boys'  and  girls'  sense  of  independence 
and  patriotism  must  be  nourished  by  making 
England  out  a  far  greater  oppressor  than  ever  she 


90  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

really  had  been.  These  historians  dwelt  as 
heavily  as  they  could  upon  George  III  and  his 
un-English  autocracy,  and  as  lightly  as  they  could 
upon  the  English  Pitt  and  upon  all  the  English 
sympathy  we  had.  Indeed,  about  this  most  of 
them  didn't  say  a  word. 

Now  that  policy  may  possibly  have  been  desir 
able  once  —  if  it  can  ever  be  desirable  to  suppress 
historic  truth  from  a  whole  nation.  But  to-day, 
when  we  have  long  stood  on  our  own  powerful 
legs  and  need  no  bolstering  up  of  such  a  kind, 
that  policy  is  not  only  silly,  it  is  pernicious.  It  is 
pernicious  because  the  world  is  heaving  with 
frightful  menaces  to  all  the  good  that  man  knows. 
They  would  strip  life  of  every  resource  gathered 
through  centuries  of  struggle.  Mad  mobs,  whole 
races  of  people  who  have  never  thought  at  all,  or 
who  have  now  hurled  away  all  pretense  of  thought, 
aim  at  mere  destruction  of  everything  that  is. 
They  don't  attempt  to  offer  any  substitute. 
Down  with  religion,  down  with  education,  down 
with  marriage,  down  with  law,  down  with  prop 
erty  :  Such  is  their  cry.  Wipe  the  slate  blank, 
they  say,  and  then  we'll  see  what,  we'll  write  on 
it.  Amid  this  stands  Germany  with  her  un- 


HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC  91 

changed  purpose  to  own  the  earth ;  and  Japan 
is  doing  some  thinking.  Amid  this  also  is  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  race  that  has  brought  our 
law,  our  order,  our  safety,  our  freedom  into  the 
modern  world.  That  any  school  histories  should 
hinder  the  members  of  this  race  from  under 
standing  each  other  truly  and  being  friends, 
should  not  be  tolerated. 

Many  years  later  than  Mr.  Sydney  George 
Fisher's  analysis  of  England  under  George  III, 
Mr.  Charles  Altschul  has  made  an  examination 
and  given  an  analysis  of  a  great  number  of 
those  school  textbooks  wherein  our  boys  and 
girls  have  been  and  are  still  being  taught  a  his 
tory  of  our  Revolution  in  the  distorted  form  that 
I  have  briefly  summarized.  His  book  was  pub 
lished  in  1917,  by  the  George  H.  Doran  Com 
pany,  New  York,  and  is  entitled  The  American 
Revolution  in  our  School  Textbooks.  Here  follow 
ing  are  some  of  his  discoveries  : 

Of  forty  school  histories  used  twenty  years  ago 
in  sixty-eight  cities,  and  in  many  more  unreported, 
four  tell  the  truth  about  King  George's  pocket  Par 
liament,  and  thirty-two  suppress  it.  To-day  our 
books  are  not  quite  so  bad,  but  it  is  not  very  much 


92  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

better ;  and  to-day,  be  it  added,  any  reforming  of 
these  textbooks  by  Boards  of  Education  is  likely  to 
be  prevented,  wherever  obstruction  is  possible, 
by  every  influence  visible  and  invisible  that  pro- 
German  and  pro-Irish  propaganda  can  exert. 
Thousands  of  our  American  school  children  all 
over  our  country  are  still  being  given  a  version 
of  our  Revolution  and  the  political  state  of 
England  then,  which  is  as  faulty  as  was  George 
Ill's  government,  with  its  fake  parliament,  its 
"  rotten  boroughs, "  its  Little  Sarum.  Meanwhile 
that  "army  of  spies"  through  which  the  Kaiser 
boasted  that  he  ruled  " supreme"  here,  and  which, 
though  he  is  gone,  is  by  no  means  a  demobilized 
army,  but  a  very  busy  and  well-drilled  and  well- 
conducted  army,  is  very  glad  that  our  boys  and 
girls  should  be  taught  false  history,  and  will  do 
its  best  to  see  that  they  are  not  taught  true 
history. 

Mr.  Charles  Altschul,  in  his  admirable  enter 
prise,  addressed  himself  to  those  who  preside 
over  our  school  world  all  over  the  country ;  he  re 
ceived  answers  from  every  state  in  the  Union,  and 
he  examined  ninety-three  history  textbooks  in 
those  passages  and  pages  which  they  devoted  to 


HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC  93 

our  Revolution.  These  books  he  grouped  accord 
ing  to  the  amount  of  information  they  gave  about 
Pitt  and  Burke  and  English  sympathy  with  us 
in  our  quarrel  with  George  III.  These  groups  are 
five  in  number,  and  dwindle  down  from  group 
one,  "  Textbooks  which  deal  fully  with  the 
grievances  of  the  colonists,  give  an  account  of 
general  political  conditions  in  England  prior  to 
the  American  Revolution,  and  give  credit  to  prom 
inent  Englishmen  for  the  services  they  rendered 
the  Americans/'  to  group  five,  " Textbooks 
which  deal  fully  with  the  grievances  of  the 
colonists,  make  no  reference  to  general  political 
conditions  in  England  prior  to  the  American  Rev 
olution,  nor  to  any  prominent  Englishmen  who 
devoted  themselves  to  the  cause  of  the  Americans." 
Of  course,  what  dwindles  is  the  amount  said  about 
our  English  sympathizers.  In  groups  three  and 
four  this  is  so  scanty  as  to  distort  the  truth  and 
send  any  boy  or  girl  who  studied  books  of  these 
groups  out  of  school  into  life  with  a  very  imperfect 
idea  indeed  of  the  size  and  importance  of  English 
opposition  to  the  policy  of  George  III ;  in  group 
five  nothing  is  said  about  this  at  all.  The  boys 
and  girls  who  studied  books  in  group  five  would 


94  A  'STRAIGHT  DEAL 

grow  up  believing  that  England  was  undividedly 
autocratic,  tyrannical,  and  hostile  to  our  liberty. 
In  his  careful  and  conscientious  classification,  Mr. 
Altschul  gives  us  the  books  in  use  twenty  years 
ago  (and  hence  responsible  for  the  opinion  of 
Americans  now  between  thirty  and  forty  years 
old)  and  books  in  use  to-day,  and  hence  responsible 
for  the  opinion  of  those  American  men  and  women 
who  will  presently  be  grown  up  and  will  prolong 
for  another  generation  the  school-taught  ignorance 
and  prejudice  of  their  fathers  and  mothers.  I 
select  from  Mr.  Altschul's  catalogue  only  those 
books  in  use  in  1917,  when  he  published  his 
volume,  and  of  these  only  group  five,  where  the 
facts  about  English  sympathy  with  us  are  totally 
suppressed.  Barnes'  School  History  of  the  United 
States,  by  Steele.  Chandler  and  Chitword's  Makers 
of  American  History.  Chambers1  (Hansell's)  A 
School  History  of  the  United  States.  Egglestoris 
A  First  Book  in  American  History.  Eggleston's 
History  of  the  United  States  and  Its  People.  Eg 
glestoris  New  Century  History  of  the  United  States. 
Evans'  First  Lessons  in  Georgia  History.  Evans' 
The  Essential  Facts  of  American  History.  E still's 
Beginner's  History  of  Our  Country.  Forman's 


HISTORY  ASTIGMATIC  95 

History  of  the  United  States.  Montgomery's  An 
Elementary  American  History.  Montgomery's  The 
Beginner's  American  History.  White's  Beginner's 
History  of  the  United  States. 

If  the  reader  has  followed  me  from  the  beginning, 
he  will  recollect  a  letter,  parts  of  which  I  quoted, 
from  a  correspondent  who  spoke  of  Mont 
gomery's  history,  giving  passages  in  which  a  fair 
and  adequate  recognition  of  Pitt  and  our  English 
sympathizers  and  their  opposition  to  George  III 
is  made.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  a  revision 
of  the  work  since  Mr.  Altschul  published  his  lists, 
and  to  substantiate  the  hope  I  expressed  in  my 
original  article,  and  which  I  here  repeat.  Surely 
the  publishers  of  these  books  will  revise  them! 
Surely  any  patriotic  American  publisher  and  any 
patriotic  board  of  education,  school  principal,  or 
educator,  will  watch  and  resist  all  propaganda  and 
other  sinister  influence  tending  to  perpetuate  this 
error  of  these  school  histories !  Whatever  excuse 
they  once  had,  be  it  the  explanation  I  have  offered 
above,  or  some  other,  there  is  no  excuse  to-day. 
These  books  have  laid  the  foundation  from  which 
has  sprung  the  popular  prejudice  against  Eng 
land.  It  has  descended  from  father  to  son.  It 


96  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

has  been  further  solidified  by  many  tales  for 
boys  and  girls,  written  by  men  and  women 
who  acquired  their  inaccurate  knowledge  at  our 
schools.  And  it  plays  straight  into  the  hands  of 
our  enemies. 


CHAPTER  IX 
CONCERNING  A  COMPLEX 


CHAPTER  IX 

CONCERNING    A    COMPLEX 

ALL  of  these  books,  history  and  fiction,  drop  into 
the  American  mind  during  its  early  springtime 
the  seed  of  antagonism,  establish  in  fact  an  anti- 
English  "complex."  It  is  as  pretty  a  case  of 
complex  on  the  wholesale  as  could  well  be  found 
by  either  historian  or  psychologist.  It  is  not  so 
violent  as  the  complex  which  has  been  planted 
in  the  German  people  by  forty  years  of  very 
adroitly  and  carefully  planned  training:  they 
were  taught  to  distrust  and  hate  everybody  and 
to  consider  themselves  so  superior  to  anybody  that 
their  sacred  duty  as  they  saw  it  in  1914  was  to 
enslave  the  world,  in  order  to  force  upon  the  world 
the  priceless  benefits  of  their  Kultur.  Under  the 
shock  of  war  that  complex  dilated  into  a  form  of 
real  hysteria  or  insanity.  Our  anti-English  com 
plex  is  fortunately  milder  than  that ;  but  none 
the  less  does  it  savor  slightly,  as  any  nerve 
specialist  or  psychological  doctor  would  tell  you 

99 


100  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

-  it  savors  slightly  of  hysteria,  that  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  American  men  and  women  of  every 
grade  of  education  and  ignorance  should  auto 
matically  exclaim  whenever  the  right  button  is 
pressed,  ''England  is  a  land-grabber,"  and  "What 
has  England  done  in  the  War?" 

The  word  complex  has  been  in  our  dictionary  for 
a  long  while.  This  familiar  adjective  has  been 
made  by  certain  scientific  people  into  a  noun, 
and  for  brevity  and  convenience  employed  to 
denote  something  that  almost  all  of  us  harbor 
in  some  form  or  other.  These  complexes,  these 
lumps  of  ideas  or  impressions  that  match  each 
other,  that  are  of  the  same  pattern,  and  that  are 
also  invariably  tinctured  with  either  a  pleasur 
able  or  painful  emotion,  lie  buried  in  our  minds, 
unthought  of  but  alive,  and  lurk  always  ready  to 
set  up  a  ferment,  whenever  some  new  thing  from 
outside  that  matches  them  enters  the  mind  and 
hence  starts  them  off.  The  ' '  suppressed  com 
plex"  I  need  not  describe,  as  our  English  complex 
is  by  no  means  suppressed.  Known  to  us  all, 
probably,  is  the  political  complex.  Year  after 
year  we  have  been  excited  about  elections  and 
candidates  and  policies,  preferring  one  party  to 


CONCERNING  A  COMPLEX  i  tdl:. 

the  other.  If  this  preference  has  been  very 
marked,  or  even  violent,  you  know  how  disinclined 
we  are  to  give  credit  to  the  other  party  for  any 
act  or  policy,  no  matter  how  excellent  in  itself, 
which,  had  our  own  party  been  its  sponsor,  we 
should  have  been  heart  and  soul  for.  You  know 
how  easily  we  forget  the  good  deeds  of  the  opposite 
party  and  how  easily  we  remember  its  bad  deeds. 
That's  a  good  simple  ordinary  example  of  a 
complex.  Its  workings  can  be  discerned  in  the 
experience  of  us  all.  In  our  present  discussion 
it  is  very  much  to  the  point. 

Established  in  the  soft  young  minds  of  our 
school  boys  and  girls  by  a  series  of  reiterated 
statements  about  the  tyranny  and  hostility  of 
England  towards  us  in  the  Revolution,  state 
ments  which  they  have  to  remember  and  master 
by  study  from  day  to  day,  tinctured  by  the 
anxiety  about  the  examination  ahead,  when  the 
students  must  know  them  or  fail,  these  incidents 
of  school  work  being  also  tinctured  by  another 
emotion,  that  of  patriotism,  enthusiasm  for 
Washington,  for  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
for  Valley  Forge  —  thus  established  in  the  regular 
way  of  all  complexes,  this  anti-English  complex 


'         J  A     ;>      ••»  '    -    •••    ^  ,1          j;         *•»     «S 

102  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

is  fed  and  watered  by  what  we  learn  of  the  War  of 
1812,  by  what  we  learn  of  the  Civil  War  of  1861, 
and  by  many  lesser  events  in  our  history  thus 
far.  And  just  as  a  Republican  will  admit  nothing 
good  of  a  Democrat  and  a  Democrat  nothing  good 
of  a  Republican  because  of  the  political  com 
plex,  so  does  the  great  —  the  vast  —  majority  of 
Americans  automatically  and  easily  remember 
everything  against  England  and  forget  every 
thing  in  her  favor.  Just  try  it  any  day  you 
like.  Ask  any  average  American  you  are  sitting 
next  to  in  a  train  what  he  knows  about  England ; 
and  if  he  does  remember  anything  and  can  tell 
it  to  you,  it  will  be  unfavorable  nine  times  in  ten. 
The  mere  word  " England"  starts  his  complex 
off,  and  out  comes  every  fact  it  has  seized  that 
matches  his  school-implanted  prejudice,  just  as 
it  has  rejected  every  fact  that  does  not  match  it. 
There  is  absolutely  no  other  way  to  explain  the 
American  habit  of  speaking  ill  of  England  and 
well  of  France.  Several  times  in  the  past,  France 
has  been  flagrantly  hostile  to  us.  But  there  was 
Lafayette,  there  was  Rochambeau,  and  the  great 
service  France  did  us  then  against  England. 
Hence  from  our  school  histories  we  have  a  pro- 


CONCERNING  A  COMPLEX  103 

French  complex.  Under  its  workings  we  auto 
matically  remember  every  good  turn  France  has 
done  us  and  automatically  forget  the  evil  turns. 
Again  try  the  experiment  yourself.  How  many 
Americans  do  you  think  that  you  will  find  who  can 
recall,  or  who  even  know  when  you  recall  to  them 
the  insolent  and  meddlesome  Citizen  Genet, 
envoy  of  the  French  Republic,  and  how  Wash 
ington  requested  his  recall  ?  Or  the  French 
privateers  that  a  little  later,  about  1797-98, 
preyed  upon  our  commerce?  And  the  hatred  of 
France  which  many  Americans  felt  and  expressed 
at  that  time?  How  many  remember  that  the 
King  of  France,  directly  our  Revolution  was  over, 
was  more  hostile  to  us  than  England  ? 


CHAPTER  X 
JACKSTRAWS 


CHAPTER  X 

JACKSTRAWS 

JACKSTRAWS  is  a  game  which  most  of  us  have 
played  in  our  youth.  You  empty  on  a  table  a 
box  of  miniature  toy  rakes,  shovels,  picks,  axes, 
all  sorts  of  tools  and  implements.  These  lie 
under  each  other  and  above  each  other  in  intri 
cate  confusion,  not  unlike  cross  timber  in  a 
western  forest,  only  instead  of  being  logs,  they 
are  about  two  inches  long  and  very  light.  The 
players  sit  round  the  table  and  with  little  hooks 
try  in  turn  to  lift  one  jackstraw  out  of  the  heap, 
without  moving  any  of  the  others.  You  go  on 
until  you  do  move  one  of  the  others,  and  this 
loses  you  your  turn.  European  diplomacy  at 
any  moment  of  any  year  reminds  you,  if  you  in 
spect  it  closely,  of  a  game  of  jackstraws.  Every 
sort  and  shape  of  intrigue  is  in  the  general  heap 
and  tangle,  and  the  jealous  nations  sit  round, 
each  trying  to  lift  out  its  own  jackstraw.  Luckily 
for  us,  we  have  not  often  been  involved  in  these 

107 


108  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

games  of  jackstraw  hitherto ;  unluckily  for  us, 
we  must  be  henceforth  involved.  If  we  kept 
out,  our  luck  would  be  still  worse. 

Immediately  after  our  Revolution,  there  was 
one  of  these  heaps  of  intrigue,  in  which  we  were 
concerned.  This  was  at  the  time  of  the  negotia 
tions  leading  to  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  to  which 
I  made  reference  at  the  close  of  the  last  section. 
This  was  in  1783.  Twenty  years  later,  in  1803, 
occurred  the  heap  of  jackstraws  that  led  to  the 
Louisiana  Purchase.  Twenty  years  later,  in 
1823,  occurred  the  heap  of  jackstraws  from  which 
emerged  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Each  of  these 
dates,  dotted  along  through  our  early  decades, 
marks  a  very  important  crisis  in  our  history. 
It  is  well  that  they  should  be  grouped  together, 
because  together  they  disclose,  so  to  speak,  a 
coherent  pattern.  This  coherent  pattern  is  Eng 
land's  attitude  towards  ourselves.  It  is  to  be 
perceived,  faintly  yet  distinctly,  in  1783,  and  it 
grows  clearer  and  ever  more  clear  until  in  1898, 
in  the  game  of  jackstraws  played  when  we  de 
clared  war  upon  Spain,  the  pattern  is  so  clear 
that  it  could  not  be  mistaken  by  any  one  who 
was  not  willfully  blinded  by  an  anti-English  com- 


JACKSTRAWS  109 

plex.  This  pattern  represents  a  preference  on 
England's  part  for  ourselves  to  other  nations. 
I  do  not  ask  you  to  think  England's  reason  for 
this  preference  is  that  she  has  loved  us  so  much ; 
that  she  has  loved  others  so  much  less  —  there 
is  her  reason.  She  has  loved  herself  better  than 
anybody.  So  must  every  nation.  So  does  every 
nation. 

Let  me  briefly  speak  of  the  first  game  of  jack- 
straws,  played  at  Paris  in  1783.  Our  Revolu 
tion  was  over.  The  terms  of  peace  had  to  be 
drawn.  Franklin,  Jay,  Adams,  and  Laurens 
were  our  negotiators.  The  various  important 
points  were  acknowledgment  of  our  independence, 
settlement  of  boundaries,  freedom  of  fishing  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Canadian  coast.  We 
had  agreed  to  reach  no  settlement  with  England 
separately  from  France  and  Spain.  They  were 
our  recent  friends.  England,  our  recent  enemy, 
sent  Richard  Oswald  as  her  peace  commissioner. 
This  private  gentleman  had  placed  his  fortune 
at  our  disposal  during  the  war,  and  was  Franklin's 
friend.  Lord  Shelburne  wrote  Franklin  that  if 
this  was  not  satisfactory,  to  say  so,  and  name 
any  one  he  preferred.  But  Oswald  was  satis- 


110  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

factory;  and  David  Hartley,  another  friend  of 
Franklin's  and  also  a  sympathizer  with  our 
Revolution,  was  added;  and  in  these  circum 
stances  and  by  these  men  the  Treaty  was  made. 
To  France  we  broke  our  promise  to  reach  no  sep 
arate  agreement  with  England.  We  negotiated 
directly  with  the  British,  and  the  Articles  were 
signed  without  consultation  with  the  French 
Government.  When  Vergennes,  the  French  Min 
ister,  saw  the  terms,  he  remarked  in  disgust  that 
England  would  seem  to  have  bought  a  peace 
rather  than  made  one.  By  the  treaty  we  got 
the  Northwest  Territory  and  the  basin  of  the  Ohio 
River  to  the  Mississippi.  Our  recent  friend,  the 
French  King,  was  much  opposed  to  our  having 
so  much  territory.  It  was  our  recent  enemy, 
England,  who  agreed  that  we  should  have  it. 
This  was  the  result  of  that  game  of  jackstraws. 

Let  us  remember  several  things :  in  our 
Revolution,  France  had  befriended  us,  not  be 
cause  she  loved  us  so  much,  but  because  she 
loved  England  so  little.  In  the  Treaty  of  Paris, 
England  stood  with  us,  not  because  she  loved  us 
so  much,  but  because  she  loved  France  so  little. 
We  must  cherish  no  illusions.  Every  nation 


JACKSTRAWS  111 

must  love  itself  more  than  it  loves  its  neighbor. 
Nevertheless,  in  this  pattern  of  England's  policy 
in  1783,  where  she  takes  her  stand  with  us  and 
against  other  nations,  there  is  a  deep  significance. 
Our  notions  of  law,  our  notions  of  life,  our  notions 
of  religion,  our  notions  of  liberty,  our  notions  of 
what  a  man  should  be  and  what  a  woman  should 
be,  are  so  much  more  akin  to  her  notions  than  to 
those  of  any  other  nation,  that  they  draw  her 
toward  us  rather  than  toward  any  other  nation. 
That  is  the  lesson  of  the  first  game  of  jackstraws. 
Next  comes  1803.  Upon  the  Louisiana  Pur 
chase,  I  have  already  touched;  but  not  upon 
its  diplomatic  side.  In  those  years  the  European 
game  of  diplomacy  was  truly  portentous.  Bona 
parte  had  appeared,  and  Bonaparte  was  the 
storm  centre.  From  the  heap  of  jackstraws  I 
shall  lift  out  only  that  which  directly  concerns 
us  and  our  acquisition  of  that  enormous  terri 
tory,  then  called  Louisiana.  Bonaparte  had 
dreamed  and  planned  an  empire  over  here.  Cer 
tain  vicissitudes  disenchanted  him,  A  plan  to 
invade  England  also  helped  to  deflect  his  mind 
from  establishing  an  outpost  of  his  empire  upon 
our  continent.  For  us  he  had  no  love.  Our 


112  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

principles  were  democratic,  he  was  a  colossal 
autocrat.  He  called  us  "the  reign  of  chatter/7 
and  he  would  have  liked  dearly  to  put  out  our 
light.  Addington  was  then  the  British  Prime 
Minister.  Robert  R.  Livingston  was  our  minister 
in  Paris.  In  the  history  of  Henry  Adams,  in 
Volume  II  at  pages  52  and  53,  you  may  find  more 
concerning  Bonaparte's  dislike  of  the  United 
States.  You  may  also  find  that  Talleyrand  ex 
pressed  the  view  that  socially  and  economically 
England  and  America  were  one  and  indivisible. 
In  Volume  I  of  the  same  history,  at  page  439, 
you  will  see  the  mention  which  Pichon  made  to 
Talleyrand  of  the  overtures  which  England  was 
incessantly  making  to  us.  At  some  time  during 
all  this,  rumor  got  abroad  of  Bonaparte's  pro 
jects  regarding  Louisiana.  In  the  second  volume 
of  Henry  Adams,  at  pages  23  and  24,  you  will 
find  Addington  remarking  to  our  minister  to 
Great  Britain,  Rufus  King,  that  it  would  not  do 
to  let  Bonaparte  establish  himself  in  Louisiana. 
Addington  very  plainly  hints  that  Great  Britain 
would  back  us  in  any  such  event.  This  backing 
of  us  by  Great  Britain  found  very  cordial  ac 
ceptance  in  the  mind  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  A 


JACKSTRAWS  113 

year  before  the  Louisiana  Purchase  was  con 
summated,  and  when  the  threat  of  Bonaparte 
was  in  the  air,  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  to  Living 
ston,  on  April  18,  1802,  that  "the  day  France 
takes  possession  of  New  Orleans,  we  must  marry 
ourselves  to  the  British  fleet  and  nation."  In 
one  of  his  many  memoranda  to  Talleyrand, 
Livingston  alludes  to  the  British  fleet.  He  also 
points  out  that  France  may  by  taking  a  cer 
tain  course  estrange  the  United  States  for  ever 
and  bind  it  closely  to  France's  great  enemy. 
This  particular  address  to  Talleyrand  is  dated 
February  1,  1803,  and  may  be  found  in  the 
Annals  of  Congress,  1802-1803,  at  pages  1078 
to  1083.  I  quote  a  sentence:  "The  critical 
moment  has  arrived  which  rivets  the  connexion 
of  the  United  States  to  France,  or  binds  a  young 
and  growing  people  for  ages  hereafter  to  her 
mortal  and  inveterate  enemy."  After  this,  hints 
follow  concerning  the  relative  maritime  power  of 
France  and  Great  Britain.  Livingston  suggests 
that  if  Great  Britain  invade  Louisiana,  who  can 
oppose  her?  Once  more  he  refers  to  Great 
Britain's  superior  fleet.  This  interesting  address 
concludes  with  the  following  exordium  to  France : 


114  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"She  will  cheaply  purchase  the  esteem  of  men 
and  the  favor  of  Heaven  by  the  surrender  of  a 
distant  wilderness,  which  can  neither  add  to  her 
wealth  nor  to  her  strength."  This,  as  you  will 
perceive,  is  quite  a  pointed  remark.  Throughout 
the  Louisiana  diplomacy,  and  negotiations  to 
which  this  diplomacy  led,  Livingston's  would 
seem  to  be  the  master  American  mind  and  pro 
phetic  vision.  But  I  must  keep  to  my  jackstraws. 
On  April  17,  1803,  Bonaparte's  brother,  Lucien, 
reports  a  conversation  held  with  him  by  Bona 
parte.  What  purposes,  what  oscillations,  may 
have  been  going  on  deep  in  Bonaparte's  secret 
mind,  no  one  can  tell.  We  may  guess  that  he 
did  not  relinquish  his  plan  about  Louisiana  defi 
nitely  for  some  time  after  the  thought  had  dawned 
upon  him  that  it  would  be  better  if  he  did 
relinquish  it.  But  unless  he  was  lying  to  his 
brother  Lucien  on  April  17,  1803,  we  get  no 
mere  glimpse,  but  a  perfectly  clear  sight  of  what 
he  had  come  finally  to  think.  It  was  certainly 
worth  while,  he  said  to  Lucien,  to  sell  when 
you  could  what  you  were  certain  to  lose;  "for 
the  English  .  .  .  are  aching  for  a  chance  to 
capture  it.  ...  Our  navy,  so  inferior  to  our 


JACKSTRAWS  115 

neighbor's  across  the  Channel,  will  always  cause 
our  colonies  to  be  exposed  to  great  risks.  .  .  . 
As  to  the  sea,  my  dear  fellow,  you  must  know 
that  there  we  have  to  lower  the  flag.  .  .  .  The 
English  navy  is,  and  long  will  be,  too  dominant." 

That  was  on  April  17.  On  May  2,  the 
Treaty  of  Cession  was  signed  by  the  exultant 
Livingston.  Bonaparte,  instead  of  establishing 
an  outpost  of  autocracy  at  New  Orleans,  sold  to 
us  not  only  the  small  piece  of  land  which  we  had 
originally  in  mind,  but  the  huge  piece  of  land 
whose  dimensions  I  have  given  above.  We  paid 
him  fifteen  millions  for  nearly  a  million  square 
miles.  The  formal  transfer  was  made  on  Decem 
ber  17  of  that  same  year,  1803.  There  is  my 
second  jackstraw. 

Thus,  twenty  years  after  the  first  time  in 
1783,  Great  Britain  stood  between  us  and  the 
designs  of  another  nation.  To  that  other  nation 
her  fleet  was  the  deciding  obstacle.  England  did 
not  love  us  so  much,  but  she  loved  France  so  much 
less.  For  the  same  reasons  which  I  have  suggested 
before,  self-interest,  behind  which  lay  her  demo 
cratic  kinship  with  our  ideals,  ranged  her  with  us. 

To  place  my  third  jackstraw,   which  follows 


116  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

twenty  years  after  the  second,  uninterruptedly 
in  this  group,  I  pass  over  for  the  moment  our 
War  of  1812.  To  that  I  will  return  after  I  have 
dealt  with  the  third  jackstraw,  namely,  the  Mon 
roe  Doctrine.  It  was  England  that  suggested  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  to  us.  From  the  origin  of  this 
in, the  mind  of  Canning  to  its  public  announcement 
upon  our  side  of  the  water,  the  pattern  to  which 
I  have  alluded  is  for  the  third  time  very  clearly 
to  be  seen. 

How  much  did  your  school  histories  tell  you 
about  the  Monroe  Doctrine?  I  confess  that 
my  notion  of  it  came  to  this :  President  Monroe 
informed  the  kings  of  Europe  that  they  must  keep 
away  from  this  hemisphere.  Whereupon  the 
kings  obeyed  him  and  have  remained  obedient 
ever  since.  Of  George  Canning  I  knew  nothing. 
Another  large  game  of  jackstraws  was  being 
played  in  Europe  in  1823.  Certain  people  there 
had  formed  the  Holy  Alliance.  Among  these, 
Prince  Metternich  the  Austrian  was  undoubtedly 
the  master  mind.  He  saw  that  by  England's 
victory  at  Waterloo  a  threat  to  all  monarchical  and 
dynastic  systems  of  government  had  been  created. 
He  also  saw  that  our  steady  growth  was  a  part  of 


JACKSTRAWS  117 

the  same  threat.  With  this  in  mind,  in  1822,  he 
brought  about  the  Holy  Alliance.  The  first  Article 
of  the  Holy  Alliance  reads  :  "The  high  contracting 
Powers,  being  convinced  that  the  system  of 
representative  government  is  as  equally  incom 
patible  with  the  monarchical  principle  as  the 
maxim  of  sovereignty  of  the  people  with  the 
Divine  right,  engage  mutually,  in  the  most  solemn 
manner,  to  use  all  their  efforts  to  put  an  end  to 
the  system  of  representative  governments,  in 
whatever  country  it  may  exist  in  Europe,  and  to 
prevent  its  being  introduced  in  those  countries 
where  it  is  not  yet  known." 

Behind  these  words  lay  a  design,  hardly  veiled, 
not  only  against  South  America,  but  against  our 
selves.  In  a  volume  entitled  With  the  Fathers, 
by  John  Bach  McMaster,  and  also  in  the  fifth 
volume  of  Mr.  McMaster's  history,  chapter  41,  you 
will  find  more  amply  what  I  abbreviate  here.  Can 
ning  understood  the  threat  to  us  contained  in  the 
Holy  Alliance.  He  made  a  suggestion  to  Richard 
Rush,  our  minister  to  England.  The  suggestion 
was  of  such  moment,  and  the  ultimate  danger  to 
us  from  the  Holy  Alliance  was  of  such  moment, 
that  Rush  made  haste  to  put  the  matter  into  the 


118  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

hands  of  President  Monroe.  President  Monroe 
likewise  found  the  matter  very  grave,  and  he 
therefore  consulted  Thomas  Jefferson.  At  that 
time  Jefferson  had  retired  from  public  life  and  was 
living  quietly  at  his  place  in  Virginia.  That. 
President  Monroe's  communication  deeply  stirred 
him  is  to  be  seen  in  his  reply,  written  October 
24,  1823.  Jefferson  says  in  part:  "The  ques 
tion  presented  by  the  letters  you  have  sent  me 
is  the  most  momentous  which  has  ever  been 
offered  to  my  contemplation  since  that  of  inde 
pendence.  .  .  .  One  nation  most  of  all  could 
disturb  us.  ...  She  now  offers  to  lead,  aid  and 
accompany  us.  ...  With  her  on  our  side  we 
need  not  fear  the  whole  world.  With  her,  then, 
we  should  most  seriously  cherish  a  cordial  friend 
ship,  and  nothing  would  tend  more  to  unite  our 
affections  than  to  be  fighting  once  more,  side  by 
side,  in  the  same  cause." 

Thus  for  the  second  time,  Thomas  Jefferson 
advises  a  friendship  with  Great  Britain.  He 
realizes  as  fully  as  did  Bonaparte  the  power  of 
her  navy,  and  its  value  to  us.  It  is  striking  and 
strange  to  find  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  wrote  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776,  writing 


JACKSTRAWS  119 

in  1823  about  uniting  our  affections  and  about 
fighting  once  more  side  by  side  with  England. 

It  was  the  revolt  of  the  Spanish  Colonies  from 
Spain  in  South  America,  and  Canning's  fear 
that  France  might  obtain  dominion  in  America, 
which  led  him  to  make  his  suggestion  to  Rush. 
The  gist  of  the  suggestion  was,  that  we  should 
join  with  Great  Britain  in  saying  that  both  coun 
tries  were  opposed  to  any  intervention  by  Europe 
in  the  western  hemisphere.  Over  our  announce 
ment  there  was  much  delight  in  England.  In  the 
London  Courier  occurs  a  sentence,  "The  South 
American  Republics  -  -  protected  by  the  two 
nations  that  possess  the  institutions  and  speak 
the  language  of  freedom."  In  this  fragment 
from  the  London  Courier,  the  kinship  at  which 
I  have  hinted  as  being  felt  by  England  in  1783, 
and  in  1803,  is  definitely  expressed.  From  the 
Holy  Alliance,  from  the  general  European  diplo 
matic  game,  and  from  England's  preference  for 
us  who  spoke  her  language  and  thought  her 
thoughts  about  liberty,  law,  what  a  man  should 
be,  what  a  woman  should  be,  issued  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  And  you  will  find  that  no  matter  what 
dynastic  or  ministerial  interruptions  have  oc- 


120  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

curred  to  obscure  this  recognition  of  kinship 
with  us  and  preference  for  us  upon  the  part  of 
the  English  people,  such  interruptions  are  always 
temporary  and  lie  always  upon  the  surface  of  Eng 
lish  sentiment.  Beneath  the  surface  the  recog 
nition  of  kinship  persists  unchanged  and  invariably 
reasserts  itself. 

That  is  my  third  jackstraw.  Canning  spoke 
to  Rush,  Rush  consulted  Monroe,  Monroe  con 
sulted  Jefferson,  and  Jefferson  wrote  what  we 
have  seen.  That,  stripped  of  every  encumbering 
circumstance,  is  the  story  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 
Ever  since  that  day  the  Monroe  Doctrine  has 
rested  upon  the  broad  back  of  the  British  Navy. 
This  has  been  no  secret  to  our  leading  historians, 
our  authoritative  writers  on  diplomacy,  and  our 
educated  and  thinking  public  men.  But  they 
have  not  generally  been  eager  to  mention  it; 
and  as  to  our  school  textbooks,  none  that  I 
studied  mentioned  it  at  all. 


CHAPTER   XI 
SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOME   FAMILY   SCRAPS 

Do  not  suppose  because  I  am  reminding  you 
of  .these  things  and  shall  remind  you  of  some  more, 
that  I  am  trying  to  make  you  hate  France.  I 
am  only  trying  to  persuade  you  to  stop  hating 
England.  I  wish  to  show  you  how  much  reason 
you  have  not  to  hate  her,  which  your  school 
histories  pass  lightly  over,  or  pass  wholly  by. 
I  want  to  make  it  plain  that  your  anti-English 
complex  and  your  pro-French  complex  entice 
your  memory  into  retaining  only  evil  about 
England  and  only  good  about  France.  That  is 
why  I  pull  out  from  the  recorded,  certified,  and 
perfectly  ascertainable  past,  these  few  large  facts. 
They  amply  justify,  as  it  seems  to  me,  and  as  I 
think  it  must  seem  to  any  reader  with  an  open 
mind,  what  I  said  about  the  pattern. 

We  must  now  touch  upon  the  War  of  1812. 
There  is  a  political  aspect  of  this  war  which  casts 
upon  it  a  light  not  generally  shed  by  our  school 

123 


124  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

histories.  Bonaparte  is  again  the  point.  Nine 
years  after  our  Louisiana  Purchase  from  him,  we 
declared  war  upon  England.  At  that  moment 
England  was  heavily  absorbed  in  her  struggle 
with  Bonaparte.  It  is  true  that  we  had  a  genuine 
grievance  against  her.  In  searching  for  British 
sailors  upon  our  ships,  she  impressed  our  own. 
This  was  our  justification. 

We  made  a  pretty  lame  showing,  in  spite  of 
the  victories  of  our  frigates  and  sloops.  Our 
one  signal  triumph  on  land  came  after  the  Treaty 
of  Peace  had  been  signed  at  Ghent.  During 
the  years  of  war,  it  was  lucky  for  us  that 
England  had  Bonaparte  upon  her  hands.  She 
could  not  give  us  much  attention.  She  was 
battling  with  the  great  Autocrat.  We,  by  de 
claring  war  upon  her  at  such  a  time,  played 
into  Bonaparte's  hands,  and  virtually,  by  em 
barrassing  England,  struck  a  blow  on  the  side  of 
autocracy  and  against  our  own  political  faith. 
It  was  a  feeble  blow,  it  did  but  slight  harm. 
And  regardless  of  it  England  struck  Bonaparte 
down.  His  hope  that  we  might  damage  and 
lessen  the  power  of  her  fleet  that  he  so  much  re 
spected  and  feared,  was  not  realized.  We  made 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  125 

the  Treaty  of  Ghent.  The  impressing  of  sailors 
from  our  vessels  was  tacitly  abandoned.  The 
next  time  that  people  were  removed  from  vessels, 
it  was  not  England  who  removed  them,  it  was  we 
ourselves,  who  had  declared  war  on  England  for 
doing  so,  we  ourselves  who  removed  them  from 
Canadian  vessels  in  the  Behring  Sea,  and  from 
the  British  ship  Trent.  These  incidents  we  shall 
reach  in  their  proper  place.  As  a  result  of 
the  War  of  1812,  some  English  felt  justified  in 
taking  from  us  a  large  slice  of  land,  but  Wellington 
said,  "I  think  you  have  no  right,  from  the  state 
of  the  war,  to  demand  any  concession  of  territory 
from  America."  This  is  all  that  need  be  said 
about  our  War  of  1812. 

Because  I  am  trying  to  give  only  the  large 
incidents,  I  have  intentionally  made  but  a  mere 
allusion  to  Florida  and  our  acquisition  of  that 
territory.  It  was  a  case  again  of  England's 
siding  with  us  against  a  third  power,  Spain,  in 
this  instance.  I  have  also  omitted  any  account 
of  our  acquisition  of  Texas,  when  England  was 
not  friendly  —  I  am  not  sure  why :  probably 
because  of  the  friction  between  us  over  Oregon. 
But  certain  other  minor  events  there  are,  which 


126  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

do  require  a  brief  reference  —  the  boundaries  of 
Maine,  of  Oregon,  the  Isthmian  Canal,  Cleveland 
and  Venezuela,  Roosevelt  and  Alaska ;  and  these 
disputes  we  shall  now  take  up  together,  before 
we  deal  with  the  very  large  matter  of  our  trouble 
with  England  during  the  Civil  War.  Chronolog 
ically,  of  course,  Venezuela  and  Alaska  fall  after 
the  Civil  War ;  but  they  belong  to  the  same  class 
to  which  Maine  and  Oregon  belong.  Together, 
all  of  these  incidents  and  controversies  form  a 
group  in  which  the  underlying  permanence  of 
British  good-will  towards  us  is  distinctly  to  be 
discerned.  Sometimes,  as  I  have  said  before, 
British  anger  with  us  obscures  the  friendly  senti 
ment.  But  this  was  on  the  surface,  and  it  al 
ways  passed.  As  usual,  it  is  only  the  anger  that 
has  stuck  in  our  minds.  Of  the  outcome  of  these 
controversies  and  the  British  temperance  and 
restraint  which  brought  about  such  outcome  the 
popular  mind  retains  no  impression. 

The  boundary  of  Maine  was  found  to  be  un 
defined  to  the  extent  of  12,000  square  miles. 
Both  Maine  and  New  Brunswick  claimed  this,  of 
course.  Maine  took  her  coat  off  to  fight,  so  did 
New  Brunswick.  Now,  we  backed  Maine,  and 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  127 

voted  supplies  and  men  to  her.  Not  so  England. 
More  soberly,  she  said,  "  Let  us  arbitrate."  We 
agreed,  it  was  done.  By  the  umpire  Maine  was 
awarded  more  than  half  what  she  claimed.  And 
then  we  disputed  the  umpire's  decision  on  the 
ground  he  hadn't  given  us  the  whole  thing ! 
Does  not  this  remind  you  of  some  of  our  base 
ball  bad  manners?  It  was  settled  later,  and 
we  got,  differently  located,  about  the  original 
award. 

Did  you  learn  in  school  about  "  fifty-four  forty, 
or  fight"?  We  were  ready  to  take  off  our  coat 
again.  Or  at  least,  that  was  the  platform  in  1844 
on  which  President  Polk  was  elected.  At  that 
time,  what  lay  between  the  north  line  of  California 
and  the  south  line  of  Alaska,  which  then  belonged 
to  Russia,  was  called  Oregon.  We  said  it  was 
ours.  England  disputed  this.  Each  nation  based 
its  title  on  discovery.  It  wasn't  really  far  from 
an  even  claim.  So  Polk  was  elected,  which  ap 
parently  meant  war;  his  words  were  bellicose. 
We  blustered  rudely.  Feeling  ran  high  in  Eng 
land ;  but  she  didn't  take  off  her  coat.  Her 
ambassador,  Pakenham,  stiff  at  first,  unbent  later. 
Under  sundry  missionary  impulses,  more  Americans 


128  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

than  British  had  recently  settled  along  the  Co 
lumbia  River  and  in  the  Willamette  Valley. 
People  from  Missouri  followed.  You  may  read 
of  our  impatient  violence  in  Professor  Dunning' s 
book,  The  British  Empire  and  the  United  States. 
Indeed,  this  volume  tells  at  length  everything 
I  am  telling  you  briefly  about  these  boundary 
disputes.  The  settlers  wished  to  be  under  our 
Government.  Virtually  upon  their  preference 
the  matter  was  finally  adjusted.  England  met 
us  with  a  compromise,  advantageous  to  us  and 
reasonable  for  herself.  Thus,  again,  was  her 
conduct  moderate  and  pacific.  If  you  think  that 
this  was  through  fear  of  us,  I  can  only  leave  you 
to  our  western  blow-hards  of  1845,  or  to  your 
anti-British  complex.  What  I  see  in  it,  is  another 
sign  of  that  fundamental  sense  of  kinship,  that 
persisting  unwillingness  to  have  a  real  scrap  with 
us,  that  stares  plainly  out  of  our  whole  first 
century  —  the  same  feeling  which  prevented  so 
many  English  from  enlisting  against  us  in  the 
Revolution  that  George  III  was  obliged  to  get 
Hessians. 

Nicaragua  comes  next.     There  again  they  were 
quite  angry  with  us  on  top,  but  controlled  in 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  129 

the  end  by  the  persisting  disposition  of  kinship. 
They  had  land  in  Nicaragua  with  the  idea  of  an 
Isthmian  Canal.  This  we  did  not  like.  They 
thought  we  should  mind  our  own  business.  But 
they  agreed  with  us  in  the  Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty  that  both  should  build  and  run  the  canal. 
Vagueness  about  territory  near  by  raised  further 
trouble,  and  there  we  were  in  the  right.  Eng 
land  yielded.  The  years  went  on  and  we  grew, 
until  the  time  came  when  we  decided  that  if 
there  was  to  be  any  canal,  no  one  but  ourselves 
should  have  it.  We  asked  to  be  let  off  the  old 
treaty.  England  let  us  off,  stipulating  the  canal 
should  be  unfortified,  and  an  "open  doof "  to  all. 
Our  representative  agreed  to  this,  much  to  our 
displeasure.  Indeed,  I  do  not  think  he  should 
have  agreed  to  it.  Did  England  hold  us  to  it? 
All  this  happened  in  the  lifetime  of  many  of  us, 
and  we  know  that  she  did  not  hold  us  to  it.  She 
gave  us  what  we  asked,  and  she  did  so  because 
she  felt  its  justice,  and  that  it  in  no  way  menaced 
her  with  injury.  All  this  began  in  1850  and 
ended,  as  we  know,  in  the  time  of  Roosevelt. 

About    1887   our   seal-fishing   in   the    Behring 
Sea  brought   on   an   acute   situation.     Into   the 


130  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

many  and  intricate  details  of  this,  I  need  not  go ; 
you  can  find  them  in  any  good  encyclopedia, 
and  also  in  Harper's  Magazine  for  April,  1891, 
and  in  other  places.  Our  fishing  clashed  with 
Canada's.  We  assumed  jurisdiction  over  the 
whole  of  the  sea,  which  is  a  third  as  big  as  the 
Mediterranean,  on  the  quite  fantastic  ground 
that  it  was  an  inland  sea.  Ignoring  the  law  that 
nobody  has  jurisdiction  outside  the  three-mile 
limit  from  their  shores,  we  seized  Canadian  vessels 
sixty  miles  from  land.  In  fact,  we  did  virtually 
what  we  had  gone  to  war  with  England  for  doing 
in  1812.  But  England  did  not  go  to  war.  She 
asked  for  arbitration.  Throughout  this,  our 
tone  was  raw  and  indiscreet,  while  hers  was  con 
spicuously  the  opposite;  we  had  done  an  un 
warrantable  and  high-handed  thing;  our  claim 
that  Behring  Sea  was  an  " inclosed"  sea  was 
abandoned ;  the  arbitration  went  against  us,  and 
we  paid  damages  for  the  Canadian  vessels. 

In  1895,  in  the  course  of  a  century's  dispute 
over  the  boundary  between  Venezuela  and  British 
Guiana,  Venezuela  took  prisoner  some  British 
subjects,  and  asked  us  to  protect  her  from  the 
consequences.  Richard  Olney,  Grover  Cleveland's 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  131 

Secretary  of  State,  informed  Lord  Salisbury, 
Prime  Minister  of  England,  that  "in  accordance 
with  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  the  United  States 
must  insist  on  arbitration"  -that  is,  of  the  dis 
puted  boundary.  It  was  an  abrupt  extension 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It  was  dictating  to 
England  the  manner  in  which  she  should  settle 
a  difference  with  another  country.  Salisbury 
declined.  On  December  17th  Cleveland  an 
nounced  to  England  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
applied  to  every  stage  of  our  national  life,  and 
that  as  Great  Britain  had  for  many  years  re 
fused  to  submit  the  dispute  to  impartial  arbitra 
tion,  nothing  remained  to  us  but  to  accept  the 
situation.  Moreover,  if  the  disputed  territory 
was  found  to  belong  to  Venezuela,  it  would  be  the 
duty  of  the  United  States  to  resist,  by  every 
means  in  its  power,  the  aggressions  of  Great 
Britain.  This  was,  in  effect,  an  ultimatum.  The 
stock  market  went  to  pieces.  In  general  American 
opinion,  war  was  coming.  The  situation  was 
indeed  grave.  First,  we  owed  the  Monroe  Doc 
trine's  very  existence  to  English  backing.  Second, 
the  Doctrine  itself  had  been  a  declaration  against 
autocracy  in  the  shape  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and 


132  'A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

England  was  not  autocracy.  Lastly,  as  a  nation, 
Venezuela  seldom  conducted  herself  or  her  gov 
ernment  on  the  steady  plan  of  democracy.  Eng 
land  was  exasperated.  And  yet  England  yielded. 
It  took  a  little  time,  but  arbitration  settled  it  in 
the  end  —  at  about  the  same  time  that  we  flatly 
declined  to  arbitrate  our  quarrel  with  Spain. 
History  will  not  acquit  us  of  groundless  meddling 
and  arrogance  in  this  matter,  while  England 
comes  out  of  it  having  again  shown  in  the  end 
both  forbearance  and  good  manners.  Before 
another  Venezuelan  incident  in  1902,  I  take  up  a 
burning  dispute  of  1903. 

As  Oregon  had  formerly  been,  so  Alaska  had 
later  become,  a  grave  source  of  friction  between 
England  and  ourselves.  Canada  claimed  bound 
aries  in  Alaska  which  we  disputed.  This  had 
smouldered  along  through  a  number  of  years 
until  the  discovery  of  gold  in  the  Klondike  region 
fanned  it  to  a  somewhat  menacing  flame.  In 
this  instance,  history  is  as  unlikely  to  approve  the 
conduct  of  the  Canadians  as  to  approve  our 
bad  manners  towards  them  upon  many  other 
occasions.  The  matter  came  to  a  head  in  Roose 
velt's  first  administration.  You  will  find  it  all 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  133 

in  the  Life  of  John  Hay  by  William  R.  Thayer, 
Volume  II.  A  commission  to  settle  the  matter 
had  dawdled  and  failed.  Roosevelt  was  tired 
of  delays.  Commissioners  again  were  appointed, 
three  Americans,  two  Canadians,  and  Alverstone, 
Lord  Chief  Justice,  to  represent  England.  To 
his  friend  Justice  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  about' 
to  sail  for  an  English  holiday,  Roosevelt  wrote  a 
private  letter  privately  to  be  shown  to  Mr. 
Balfour,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  certain  other 
Englishmen  of  mark.  He  said:  "The  claim  of 
the  Canadians  for  access  to  deep  water  along 
any  part  of  the  Alaskan  coast  is  just  exactly  as 
indefensible  as  if  they  should  now  suddenly  claim 
the  Island  of  Nantucket."  Canada  had  objected 
to  our  Commissioners  as  being  not  "impartial 
jurists  of  repute."  As  to  this,  Roosevelt's  letter 
to  Holmes  ran  on :  "I  believe  that  no  three  men 
in  the  United  States  could  be  found  who  would 
be  more  anxious  than  our  own  delegates  to  do 
justice  to  the  British  claim  on  all  points  where 
there  is  even  a  color  of  right  on  the  British  side. 
But  the  objection  raised  by  certain  British 
authorities  to  Lodge,  Root,  and  Turner,  especially 
to  Lodge  and  Root,  was  that  they  had  committed 


134  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

themselves  on  the  general  proposition.  No  man 
in  public  life  in  any  position  of  prominence  could 
have  possibly  avoided  committing  himself  on 
the  proposition,  any  more  than  Mr.  Chamberlain 
could  avoid  committing  himself  on  the  ownership 
of  the  Orkneys  if  some  Scandinavian  country 
suddenly  claimed  them.  If  this  embodied  other 
points  to  which  there  was  legitimate  doubt,  I 
believe  Mr.  Chamberlain  would  act  fairly  and 
squarely  in  deciding  the  matter;  but  if  he  ap 
pointed  a  commission  to  settle  up  all  these  ques 
tions,  I  certainly  should  not  expect  him  to  ap 
point  three  men,  if  he  could  find  them,  who  be 
lieved  that  as  to  the  Orkneys  the  question  was 
an  open  one.  I  wish  to  make  one  last  effort 
to  bring  about  an  agreement  through  the  Com 
mission.  .  .  .  But  if  there  is  a  disagreement 
...  I  shall  take  a  position  which  will  prevent 
any  possibility  of  arbitration  hereafter ;  .  .  .  will 
render  it  necessary  for  Congress  to  give  me  the 
authority  to  run  the  line  as  we  claim  it,  by  our 
own  people,  without  any  further  regard  to  the 
attitude  of  England  and  Canada.  If  I  paid 
attention  to  mere  abstract  rights,  that  is  the 
position  I  ought  to  take  anyhow.  I  have  not 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  135 

taken  it  because  I  wish  to  exhaust  every  effort 
to  have  the  affair  settled  peacefully  and  with  due 
regard  to  England's  honor." 

That  is  the  way  to  do  these  things :  not  by  a 
peremptory  public  letter,  like  Olney's  to  Salis 
bury,  which  enrages  a  whole  people  and  makes 
temperate  action  doubly  difficult,  but  thus,  by  a 
private  letter  to  the  proper  persons,  very  plain, 
very  unmistakable,  but  which  remains  private, 
a  sufficient  word  to  the  wise,  and  not  a  red  rag 
to  the  mob.  "To  have  the  affair  settled  peace 
fully  and  with  due  regard  to  England's  honor." 
Thus  Roosevelt.  England  desired  no  war  with 
us  this  time,  any  more  than  at  the  other  time. 
The  Commission  went  to  work,  and,  after  in 
vestigating  the  facts,  decided  in  our  favor. 

Our  list  of  boundary  episodes  finished,  I  must 
touch  upon  the  affair  with  the  Kaiser  regarding 
Venezuela's  debts.  She  owed  money  to  Germany, 
Italy,  and  England.  The  Kaiser  got  the  ear  of 
the  Tory  government  under  Salisbury,  and  be 
tween  the  three  countries  a  secret  pact  was  made 
to  repay  themselves.  Venezuela  is  not  seldom 
reluctant  to  settle  her  obligations,  and  she  was 
slow  upon  this  occasion.  It  was  the  Kaiser's 


136  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

chance  —  he  had  been  trying  it  already  at  other 
points  —  to  slide  into  a  foothold  over  here  under 
the  camouflage  of  collecting  from  Venezuela  her 
just  debt  to  him.  So  with  warships  he  and  his 
allies  established  what  he  called  a  pacific  blockade 
on  Venezuelan  ports. 

I  must  skip  the  comedy  that  now  went  on  in 
Washington  (you  will  find  it  on  pages  287-288  of 
Mr.  Thayer's  John  Hay,  Volume  II)  and  come 
at  once  to  Mr.  Roosevelt's  final  word  to  the 
Kaiser,  that  if  there  was  not  an  offer  to  arbitrate 
within  forty-eight  hours,  Admiral  Dewey  would 
sail  for  Venezuela.  In  thirty-six  hours  arbitration 
was  agreed  to.  England  withdrew  from  her  share 
in  the  secret  pact.  Had  she  wanted  war  with  us, 
her  fleet  and  the  Kaiser's  could  have  outmatched 
our  own.  She  did  not;  and  the  Kaiser  had  still 
very  clearly  and  sorely  in  remembrance  what 
choice  she  had  made  between  standing  with  him 
and  standing  with  us  a  few  years  before  this,  upon 
an  occasion  that  was  also  connected  with  Admiral 
Dewey.  This  I  shall  fully  consider  after  sum 
marizing  those  international  episodes  of  our  Civil 
War  wherein  England  was  concerned. 

This  completes  my  list  of  minor  troubles  with 


SOME  FAMILY  SCRAPS  137 

England  that  we  have  had  since  Canning  sug 
gested  our  Monroe  Doctrine  in  1823.  Minor 
troubles,  I  call  them,  because  they  are  all  smaller 
than  those  during  our  Civil  War.  The  full  record 
of  each  is  an  open  page  of  history  for  you  to  read 
at  leisure  in  any  good  library.  You  will  find 
that  the  anti-English  complex  has  its  influence 
sometimes  in  the  pages  of  our  historians,  but 
Professor  Dunning  is  free  from  it.  You  will 
find,  whatever  transitory  gusts  of  anger,  jealousy, 
hostility,  or  petulance  may  have  swept  over  the 
English  people  in  their  relations  with  us,  these 
gusts  end  in  a  calm;  and  this  calm  is  due  to 
the  common-sense  of  the  race.  It  revealed  itself 
in  the  treaty  at  the  close  of  our  Revolution,  and 
it  has  been  the  ultimate  controlling  factor  in 
English  dealings  with  us  ever  since.  And  now  I 
reach  the  last  of  my  large  historic  matters,  the 
Civil  War,  and  our  war  with  Spain. 


CHAPTER  XII 
ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE 


CHAPTER   XII 

ON   THE    RAGGED    EDGE 

ON  November  6,  1860,  Lincoln,  nominee  of 
the  Republican  party,  which  was  opposed  to 
the  extension  of  slavery,  was  elected  President 
of  the  United  States.  Forty-one  days  later, 
the  legislature  of  South  Carolina,  determined  to 
perpetuate  slavery,  met  at  Columbia,  but,  on 
account  of  a  local  epidemic,  moved  to  Charleston. 
There,  about  noon,  December  20th,  it  unani 
mously  declared  "that  the  Union  now  subsist 
ing  between  South  Carolina  and  other  States, 
under  the  name  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
is  hereby  dissolved."  Soon  other  slave  states 
followed  this  lead,  and  among  them  all,  during 
those  final  months  of  Buchanan's  presidency, 
preparedness  went  on,  unchecked  by  the  half- 
feeble,  half-treacherous  Federal  Government. 
Lincoln,  in  his  inaugural  address,  March  4, 
1861,  declared  that  he  had  no  purpose,  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of 

141 


142  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

slavery  in  the  states  where  it  existed.  To  the 
seceded  slave  states  he  said:  "In  your  hands, 
my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  mine, 
is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  Gov 
ernment  will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no 
conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  can  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to 
destroy  the  Government ;  while  I  shall  have  the 
most  solemn  one  to  preserve,  protect  and  defend 
it."  This  changed  nothing  in  the  slave  states. 
It  was  not  enough  for  them  that  slavery  could 
keep  on  where  it  was.  To  spread  it  where  it 
was  not,  had  been  their  aim  for  a  very  long  while. 
The  next  day,  March  5th,  Lincoln  had  letters 
from  Fort  Sumter,  in  Charleston  harbor.  Major 
Anderson  was  besieged  there  by  the  batteries 
of  secession,  was  being  starved  out,  might  hold 
on  a  month  longer,  needed  help.  Through  stag 
gering  complications  and  embarrassments,  which 
were  presently  to  be  outstaggered  by  worse  ones, 
Lincoln  by  the  end  of  March  saw  his  path  clear. 
"In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-country 
men,  and  not  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of 
civil  war."  The  clew  to  the  path  had  been  in 
those  words  from  the  first.  The  flag  of  the  Union, 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  143 

the  little  island  of  loyalty  amid  the  waters  of 
secession,  was  covered  by  the  Charleston  bat 
teries.  "  Batteries  ready  to  open  Wednesday 
or  Thursday.  What  instructions?"  Thus,  on 
April  1st,  General  Beauregard,  at  Charleston, 
telegraphed  to  Jefferson  Davis.  They  had  all 
been  hoping  that  Lincoln  would  give  Fort  Sumter 
to  them  and  so  save  their  having  to  take  it.  Not 
at  all.  The  President  of  the  United  States  was 
not  going  to  give  away  property  of  the  United 
States.  Instead,  the  Governor  of  South  Caro 
lina  received  a  polite  message  that  an  attempt 
would  be  made  to  supply  Fort  Sumter  with  food 
only,  and  that  if  this  were  not  interfered  with, 
no  arms  or  ammunition  should  be  sent  there  with 
out  further  notice,  or  in  case  the  fort  were 
attacked.  Lincoln  was  leaning  backwards,  you 
might  say,  in  his  patient  effort  to  conciliate. 
And  accordingly  our  transports  sailed  from  New 
York  for  Charleston  with  instructions  to  supply 
Sumter  with  food  alone,  unless  they  should  be 
opposed  in  attempting  to  carry  out  their  errand. 
This  did  not  suit  Jefferson  Davis  at  all ;  and,  to 
cut  it  short,  at  half -past  four,  on  the  morning  of 
April  12,  1861,  there  arose  into  the  air  from  the 


144  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

mortar  battery  near  old  Fort  Johnson,  on  the 
south  side  of  the  harbor,  a  bomb-shell,  which 
curved  high  and  slow  through  the  dawn,  and 
fell  upon  Fort  Sumter,  thus  starting  four  years 
of  civil  war.  One  week  later  the  Union  pro 
claimed  a  blockade  on  the  ports  of  Slave  Land. 

Bear  each  and  all  of  these  facts  in  mind,  I  beg, 
bear  them  in  mind  well,  for  in  the  light  of  them 
you  can  see  England  clearly,  and  will  have  no 
trouble  in  following  the  different  threads  of  her 
conduct  towards  us  during  this  struggle.  What 
she  did  then  gave  to  our  ancient  grudge  against 
her  the  reddest  coat  of  fresh  paint  which  it  had 
received  yet  —  the  reddest  and  the  most  enduring 
since  George  III. 

England  ran  true  to  form.  It  is  very  interest 
ing  to  mark  this ;  very  interesting  to  watch  in 
her  government  and  her  people  the  persistent 
and  conflicting  currents  of  sympathy  and  antip 
athy  boil  up  again,  just  as  they  had  boiled  in 
1776.  It  is  equally  interesting  to  watch  our 
ancient  grudge  at  work,  causing  us  to  remember 
and  hug  all  the  ill  will  she  bore  us,  all  the  harm 
she  did  us,  and  to  forget  all  the  good.  Roughly 
comparing  1776  with  1861,  it  was  once  more  the 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  145 

Tories,  the  aristocrats,  the  Lord  Norths,  who 
hoped  for  our  overthrow,  while  the  people  of 
England,  with  certain  liberal  leaders  in  Parlia 
ment,  stood  our  friends.  Just  as  Pitt  and  Burke 
had  spoken  for  us  in  our  Revolution,  so  Bright 
and  Cobden  befriended  us  now.  The  parallel 
ceases  when  you  come  to  the  Sovereign.  Queen 
Victoria  declined  to  support  or  recognize  Slave 
Land.  She  stopped  the  Government  and  aris 
tocratic  England  from  forcing  war  upon  us,  she 
prevented  the  French  Emperor,  Napoleon  III, 
from  recognizing  the  Southern  Confederacy.  We 
shall  come  to  this  in  its  turn.  Our  Civil  War 
set  up  in  England  a  huge  vibration,  subjected 
England  to  a  searching  test  of  herself.  Nothing 
describes  this  better  than  a  letter  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher's,  written  during  the  War,  after  his 
return  from  addressing  the  people  of  England. 

"My  own  feelings  and  judgment  underwent  a 
great  change  while  I  was  in  England  ...  I 
was  chilled  and  shocked  at  the  coldness  towards 
the  North  which  I  everywhere  met,  and  the  sym 
pathetic  prejudices  in  favor  of  the  South.  And 
yet  everybody  was  alike  condemning  slavery 
and  praising  liberty!" 


146  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

How  could  England  do  this,  how  with  the 
same  breath  blow  cold  and  hot,  how  be  against 
the  North  that  was  fighting  the  extension  of  slav 
ery  and  yet  be  against  slavery  too?  Confusing 
at  the  time,  it  is  clear  to-day.  Imbedded  in  Lin 
coln's  first  inaugural  address  lies  the  clew:  he 
said,  "I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  where 
it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do 
so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so.  Those 
who  elected  me  did  so  with  full  knowledge  that 
I  had  made  this  and  many  similar  declarations, 
and  had  never  recanted  them."  Thus  Lincoln, 
March  4,  1861.  Six  weeks  later,  when  we 
went  to  war,  we  went,  not  "to  interfere  with  the 
institution  of  slavery,"  but  (again  in  Lincoln's 
words)  "to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend"  the 
Union.  This  was  our  slogan,  this  our  fight,  this 
was  repeated  again  and  again  by  our  soldiers  and 
civilians,  by  our  public  men  and  our  private  citi 
zens.  Can  you  see  the  position  of  those  English 
men  who  condemned  slavery  and  praised  liberty? 
We  ourselves  said  we  were  not  out  to  abolish 
slavery,  we  disclaimed  any  such  object,  by  our 
own  words  we  cut  the  ground  away  from  them. 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  147 

Not  until  September  22d  of  1862,  to  take  effect 
upon  January  1,  1863,  did  Lincoln  proclaim 
emancipation  —  thus  doing  what  he  had  said 
twenty- two  months  before  "I  believe  I  have  no 
lawful  right  to  do." 

That  interim  of  anguish  and  meditation  had 
cleared  his  sight.  Slowly  he  had  felt  his  way, 
slowly  he  had  come  to  perceive  that  the  preser 
vation  of  the  Union  and  the  abolition  of  slavery 
were  so  tightly  wrapped  together  as  to  merge 
and  be  one  and  the  same  thing.  But  even  had 
he  known  this  from  the  start,  known  that  the 
North's  bottom  cause,  the  ending  of  slavery, 
rested  on  moral  ground,  and  that  moral  ground 
outweighs  and  must  forever  outweigh  what 
ever  of  legal  argument  may  be  on  the  other  side, 
he  could  have  done  nothing.  "I  believe  I  have 
no  lawful  right."  There  were  thousands  in  the 
North  who  also  thus  believed.  It  was  only  an 
extremist  minority  who  disregarded  the  Consti 
tution's  acquiescence  in  slavery  and  wanted 
emancipation  proclaimed  at  once.  Had  Lin 
coln  proclaimed  it,  the  North  would  have  split 
in  pieces,  the  South  would  have  won,  the  Union 
would  have  perished,  and  slavery  would  have 


148  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

remained.  Lincoln  had  to  wait  until  the  season 
of  anguish  and  meditation  had  unblinded  thou 
sands  besides  himself,  and  thus  had  placed  behind 
him  enough  of  the  North  to  struggle  on  to  that 
saving  of  the  Union  and  that  freeing  of  the  slave 
which  was  consummated  more  than  two  years 
later  by  Lee's  surrender  to  Grant  at  Appomattox. 

But  it  was  during  that  interim  of  anguish  and 
meditation  that  England  did  us  most  of  the  harm 
which  our  memories  vaguely  but  violently  treas 
ure.  Until  the  Emancipation,  we  gave  our 
English  friends  no  public,  official  grounds  for 
their  sympathy,  and  consequently  their  influence 
over  our  English  enemies  was  hampered.  In 
stantly  after  January  1,  1863,  that  sympathy 
became  the  deciding  voice.  Our  enemies  could 
no  longer  say  to  it,  "but  Lincoln  says  himself 
that  he  doesn't  intend  to  abolish  slavery." 

Here  are  examples  of  what  occurred :  To  Wil 
liam  Lloyd  Garrison,  the  Abolitionist,  an  English 
sympathizer  wrote  that  three  thousand  men  of 
Manchester  had  met  there  and  adopted  by  accla 
mation  an  enthusiastic  message  to  Lincoln.  These 
men  said  that  they  would  rather  remain  unem 
ployed  for  twenty  years  than  get  cotton  from  the 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  149 

South  at  the  expense  of  the  slave.  A  month 
later  Cobden  writes  to  Charles  Sumner :  "I 
know  nothing  in  my  political  experience  so  strik 
ing,  as  a  display  of  spontaneous  public  action, 
as  that  of  the  vast  gathering  at  Exeter  Hall 
(in  London),  when,  without  one  attraction  in  the 
form  of  a  popular  orator,  the  vast  building,  its 
minor  rooms  and  passages,  and  the  streets  ad 
joining,  were  crowded  with  an  enthusiastic  audi 
ence.  That  meeting  has  had  a  powerful  effect 
on  our  newspapers  and  politicians.  It  has  closed 
the  mouths  of  those  who  have  been  advocating 
the  side  of  the  South.  And  I  now  write  to  assure 
you  that  any  unfriendly  act  on  the  part  of  our 
Government  —  no  matter  which  of  our  aristo 
cratic  parties  is  in  power  —  towards  your  cause 
is  not  to  be  apprehended.  If  an  attempt  were 
made  by  the  Government  in  any  way  to  commit 
us  to  the  South,  a  spirit  would  be  instantly  aroused 
which  would  drive  that  Government  from  power." 
I  lay  emphasis  at  this  point  upon  these  instances 
(many  more  could  be  given)  because  it  has  been 
the  habit  of  most  Americans  to  say  that  Eng 
land  stopped  being  hostile  to  the  North  as  soon 
as  the  North  began  to  win.  In  January,  1863, 


150  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

the  North  had  not  visibly  begun  to  win,  it  had 
suffered  almost  unvaried  defeat  so  far;  and  the 
battles  of  Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg,  where  the 
tide  turned  at  last  our  way,  were  still  six  months 
ahead.  It  was  from  January  1,  1863,  when  Lin 
coln  planted  our  cause  firmly  and  openly  on 
abolition  ground,  that  the  undercurrent  of  British 
sympathy  surged  to  the  top.  The  true  wonder 
is,  that  this  undercurrent  should  have  been  so 
strong  all  along,  that  those  English  sympathizers 
somehow  in  their  hearts  should  have  known 
what  we  were  fighting  for  more  clearly  than  we 
had  been  able  to  see  it  ourselves.  The  key  to 
this  is  given  in  Beecher's  letter  —  it  is  nowhere 
better  given  —  and  to  it  I  must  now  return. 

"I  soon  perceived  that  my  first  error  was  in 
supposing  that  Great  Britain  was  an  impartial 
spectator.  In  fact,  she  was  morally  an  actor 
in  the  conflict.  Such  were  the  antagonistic 
influences  at  work  in  her  own  midst,  and  the 
division  of  parties,  that,  in  judging  American 
affairs  she  could  not  help  lending  sanction  to  one 
or  the  other  side  of  her  own  internal  conflicts* 
England  was  not,  then,  a  judge,  sitting  calmly 
on  the  bench  to  decide  without  bias ;  the  case 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  151 

brought  before  her  was  her  own,  in  principle, 
and  in  interest.  In  taking  sides  with  the  North, 
the  common  people  of  Great  Britain  and  the  labor 
ing  class  took  sides  with  themselves  in  their 
struggle  for  reformation;  while  the  wealthy 
and  the  privileged  classes  found  a  reason  in  their 
own  political  parties  and  philosophies  why  they 
should  not  be  too  eager  for  the  legitimate  govern 
ment  and  nation  of  the  United  States. 

"All  classes  who,  at  home,  were  seeking  the 
elevation  and  political  enfranchisement  of  the 
common  people,  were  with  us.  All  who  studied 
the  preservation  of  the  state  in  its  present  un 
equal  distribution  of  political  privileges,  sided 
with  that  section  in  America  that  were  doing  the 
same  thing. 

"We  ought  not  to  be  surprised  nor  angry  that 
men  should  maintain  aristocratic  doctrines  which 
they  believe  in  fully  as  sincerely,  and  more  con 
sistently,  than  we,  or  many  amongst  us  do,  in 
democratic  doctrines. 

"We  of  all  people  ought  to  understand  how  a 
government  can  be  cold  or  semi-hostile,  while  the 
people  are  friendly  with  us.  For  thirty  years 
the  American  Government,  in  the  hands,  or 


152  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

under  the  influence  of  Southern  statesmen,  has 
been  in  a  threatening  attitude  to  Europe,  and 
actually  in  disgraceful  conflict  with  all  the  weak 
neighboring  Powers.  Texas,  Mexico,  Central 
America,  and  Cuba  are  witnesses.  Yet  the 
great  body  of  our  people  in  the  Middle  and  North 
ern  States  are  strongly  opposed  to  all  such  tend 


encies." 


It  was  in  a  very  brief  visit  that  Beecher  man 
aged  to  see  England  as  she  was :  a  remarkable 
letter  for  its  insight,  and  more  remarkable  still 
for  its  moderation,  when  you  consider  that  it 
was  written  in  the  midst  of  our  Civil  War,  while 
loyal  Americans  were  not  only  enraged  with  Eng 
land,  but  wounded  to  the  quick  as  well.  When 
a  man  can  do  this  —  can  have  passionate  con 
victions  in  passionate  times,  and  yet  keep  his 
judgment  unclouded,  wise,  and  calm,  he  serves 
his  country  well. 

I  can  remember  the  rage  and  the  wound.  In 
that  atmosphere  I  began  my  existence.  My 
childhood  was  steeped  in  it.  In  our  house  the 
London  Punch  was  stopped,  because  of  its  hostile 
ridicule.  I  grew  to  boyhood  hearing  from  my 
elders  how  England  had  for  years  taunted  us  with 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  153 

our  tolerance  of  slavery  while  we  boasted  of 
being  the  Land  of  the  Free  —  and  then,  when  we 
arose  to  abolish  slavery,  how  she  "jack-knived" 
and  gave  aid  and  comfort  to  the  slave  power 
when  it  had  its  fingers  upon  our  throat.  Many 
of  that  generation  of  my  elders  never  wholly  got 
over  the  rage  and  the  wound.  They  hated  all 
England  for  the  sake  of  less  than  half  England. 
They  counted  their  enemies  but  never  their 
friends.  There's  nothing  unnatural  about  this, 
nothing  rare.  On  the  contrary,  it's  the  usual, 
natural,  unjust  thing  that  human  nature  does 
in  times  of  agony.  It's  the  Henry  Ward  Beechers 
that  are  rare.  In  times  of  agony  the  average 
man  and  woman  see  nothing  but  their  agony. 
When  I  look  over  some  of  the  letters  that  I  re 
ceived  from  England  in  1915  —  letters  from 
strangers  evoked  by  a  book  called  The  Pentecost 
of  Calamity,  wherein  I  had  published  my  convic 
tion  that  the  cause  of  England  was  righteous, 
the  cause  of  Germany  hideous,  and  our  own 
persistent  neutrality  unworthy  —  I'm  glad  I  lost 
my  temper  only  once,  and  replied  caustically 
only  once.  How  dreadful  (wrote  one  of  my  corre 
spondents)  must  it  be  to  belong  to  a  nation  that 


154  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

was  behaving  like  mine!  I  retorted  (I'm  sorry 
for  it  now)  that  I  could  all  the  more  readily 
comprehend  English  feeling  about  our  neutrality, 
because  I  had  known  what  we  had  felt  when  Glad 
stone  spoke  at  Newcastle  and  when  England  let 
the  Alabama  loose  upon  us  in  1862.  Where  was 
the  good  in  replying  at  all?  Silence  is  almost 
always  the  best  reply  in  these  cases.  Next 
came  a  letter  from  another  English  stranger,  in 
which  the  writer  announced  having  just  read 
The  Pentecost  of  Calamity.  Not  a  word  of  friend 
liness  for  what  I  had  said  about  the  righteousness 
of  England's  cause  or  my  expressed  unhappiness 
over  the  course  which  our  Government  had  taken 
—  nothing  but  scorn  for  us  all  and  the  hope  that 
we  should  reap  our  deserts  when  Germany  de 
feated  England  and  invaded  us.  Well?  What 
of  it?  Here  was  a  stricken  person,  writing  in 
stress,  in  a  land  of  desolation,  mourning  for  the 
dead  already,  waiting  for  the  next  who  should 
die,  a  poor,  unstrung  average  person,  who  had 
not  long  before  read  that  remark  of  our  Presi 
dent's  made  on  the  morrow  of  the  Lusitania: 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  too  proud  to 
fight;  had  read  during  the  ensuing  weeks  those 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  155 

notes  wherein  we  stood  committed  by  our  Chief 
Magistrate  to  a  verbal  slinking  away  and  sitting 
down  under  it.  Can  you  wonder?  If  the  mere 
memory  of  those  days  of  our  humiliation  stabs 
me  even  now,  I  need  no  one  to  tell  me  (though  I 
have  been  told)  what  England,  what  France,  felt 
about  us  then,  what  it  must  have  been  like  for 
Americans  who  were  in  England  and  France  at 
that  time.  No :  the  average  person  in  great 
trouble  cannot  rise  above  the  trouble  and  survey 
the  truth  and  be  just.  In  English  eyes  our 
Government  —  and  therefore  all  of  us  —  failed 
in  1914  —  1915  —  1916  —  failed  again  and  again 
-insulted  the  cause  of  humanity  when  we  said 
through  our  President  in  1916,  the  third  summer 
of  the  war,  that  we  were  not  concerned  with  either 
the  causes  or  the  aims  of  that  conflict.  How 
could  they  remember  Hoover,  or  Robert  Bacon, 
or  Leonard  Wood,  or  Theodore  Roosevelt  then, 
any  more  than  we  could  remember  John  Bright, 
or  Richard  Cobden,  or  the  Manchester  men  in 
the  days  when  the  Alabama  was  sinking  the 
merchant  vessels  of  the  Union  ? 

We  remembered  Lord  John  Russell  and  Lord 
Palmerston  in  the  British  Government,  and  their 


156  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

fellow  aristocrats  in  British  society;  we  remem 
bered  the  aristocratic  British  press  —  The  Times 
notably,  because  the  most  powerful  —  these  are 
what  we  saw,  felt,  and  remembered,  because 
they  were  not  with  us,  and  were  able  to  hurt  us 
in  the  days  when  our  friends  were  not  yet  able 
to  help  us.  They  made  welcome  the  Southerners 
who  came  over  in  the  interests  of  the  South,  they 
listened  to  the  Southern  propaganda.  Why? 
Because  the  South  was  the  American  version  of 
their  aristocratic  creed.  To  those  who  came  over 
in  the  interests  of  the  North  and  of  the  Union 
they  turned  a  cold  shoulder,  because  they  repre 
sented  Democracy ;  moreover,  a  Dis-United  States 
would  prove  in  commerce  a  less  formidable  com 
petitor.  To  Captain  Bullock,  the  able  and  ener 
getic  Southerner  who  put  through  in  England  the 
building  and  launching  of  those  Confederate 
cruisers  which  sank  our  ships  and  destroyed  our 
merchant  marine,  and  to  Mason  and  Slidell, 
the  doors  of  dukes  opened  pleasantly;  Beecher 
and  our  other  emissaries  mostly  had  to  dine 
beneath  uncoroneted  roofs. 

In  the  pages  of  Henry  Adams,  and  of  Charles 
Francis  Adams  his  brother,  you  can  read  of  what 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  157 

they,  as  young  men,  encountered  in  London,  and 
what  they  saw  their  father  have  to  put  up  with 
there,  both  from  English  society  and  the  English 
Government.  Their  father  was  our  new  minister 
to  England,  appointed  by  Lincoln.  He  arrived 
just  after  our  Civil  War  had  begun.  I  have 
heard  his  sons  talk  about  it  familiarly,  and  it  is 
all  to  be  found  in  their  writings. 

Nobody  knows  how  to  be  disagreeable  quite 
so  well  as  the  English  gentleman,  except  the 
English  lady.  They  can  do  it  with  the  nicety 
of  a  medicine  dropper.  They  can  administer 
the  precise  quantum  suff.  in  every  case.  In  the 
society  of  English  gentlemen  and  ladies  Mr. 
Adams  by  his  official  position  was  obliged  to  move. 
They  left  him  out  as  much  as  they  could,  but, 
being  the  American  Minister,  he  couldn't  be  left 
out  altogether.  At  their  dinners  and  functions 
he  had  to  hear  open  expressions  of  joy  at  the 
news  of  Southern  victories,  he  had  to  receive 
slights  both  veiled  and  unveiled,  and  all  this  he 
had  to  bear  with  equanimity.  Sometimes  he 
did  leave  the  room;  but  with  dignity  and  dis 
cretion.  A  false  step,  a  "break,"  might  have 
led  to  a  request  for  his  recall.  He  knew  that  his 


158  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

constant  presence,  close  to  the  English  Govern 
ment,  was  vital  to  our  cause.  Russell  and  Palm- 
erston  were  by  turns  insolent  and  shifty,  and 
once  on  the  very  brink  of  recognizing  the  Southern 
Confederacy  as  an  independent  nation.  Glad 
stone,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  a  speech 
at  Newcastle,  virtually  did  recognize  it.  You 
will  be  proud  of  Mr.  Adams  if  you  read  how 
he  bore  himself  and  fulfilled  his  appallingly 
delicate  and  difficult  mission.  He  was  an 
American  who  knew  how  to  behave  himself, 
and  he  behaved  himself  all  the  time;  while 
the  English  had  a  way  of  turning  their  behavior 
on  and  off,  like  the  hot  water.  Mr.  Adams  was 
no  admirer  of  "  shirt-sleeves "  diplomacy.  His 
diplomacy  wore  a  coat.  Our  experiments  in 
"  shirt-sleeves  "  diplomacy  fail  to  show  that  it  ac 
complishes  anything  which  diplomacy  decently 
dressed  would  not  accomplish  more  satisfac 
torily.  Upon  Mr.  Adam.s  fell  some  consequences 
of  previous  American  crudities,  of  which  I  shall 
speak  later. 

Lincoln  had  declared  a  blockade  on  Southern 
ports  before  Mr.  Adams  arrived  in  London.  Upon 
his  arrival  he  found  England  had  proclaimed  her 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  159 

neutrality  and  recognized  the  belligerency  of  the 
South.  This  dismayed  Mr.  Adams  and  excited 
the  whole  North,  because  feeling  ran  too  high 
to  perceive  this  first  act  on  England's  part  to 
be  really  favorable  to  us ;  she  could  not  recognize 
our  blockade,  which  stopped  her  getting  Southern 
cotton,  unless  she  recognized  that  the  South  was 
in  a  state  of  war  with  us.  Looked  at  quietly, 
this  act  of  England's  helped  us  and  hurt  herself, 
for  it  deprived  her  of  cotton. 

It  was  not  with  this,  but  with  the  reception 
and  treatment  of  Mr.  Adams  that  the  true  hos 
tility  began.  Slights  to  him  were  slaps  at  us, 
sympathy  with  the  South  was  an  active  moral 
injury  to  our  cause,  even  if  it  was  mostly  an  under 
tone,  politically.  Then  all  of  a  sudden,  some 
thing  that  we  did  ourselves  changed  the  under 
tone  to  a  loud  overtone,  and  we  just  grazed  Eng 
land's  declaring  war  on  us.  Had  she  done  so, 
then  indeed  it  had  been  all  up  with  us.  This 
incident  is  the  comic  going-back  on  our  own  doc 
trine  of  1812,  to  which  I  have  alluded  above. 

On  November  8,  1861,  Captain  Charles 
Wilkes  of  the  American  steam-sloop  San  Jacinto, 
fired  a  shot  across  the  bow  of  the  British  vessel 


160  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

Trent,  stopped  her  on  the  high  seas,  and  took 
four  passengers  off  her,  and  brought  them  pris 
oners  to  Fort  Warren,  in  Boston  harbor.  Mason 
and  Slidell  are  the  two  we  remember,  Confed 
erate  envoys  to  France  and  Great  Britain.  Over 
this  the  whole  North  burst  into  glorious  joy. 
Our  Secretary  of  the  Navy  wrote  to  Wilkes  his 
congratulations,  Congress  voted  its  thanks  to 
him,  governors  and  judges  laureled  him  with 
oratory  at  banquets,  he  was  feasted  with  meat 
and  drink  all  over  the  place,  and,  though  his 
years  were  sixty-three,  ardent  females  probably 
rushed  forth  from  throngs  and  kissed  him  with 
the  purest  intentions :  heroes  have  no  age.  But 
presently  the  Trent  arrived  in  England,  and  the 
British  lion  was  aroused.  We  had  violated  in 
ternational  law,  and  insulted  the  British  flag. 
Palmerston  wrote  us  a  letter — or  Russell,  I  forget 
which  wrote  it  —  a  letter  that  would  have  left  us 
no  choice  but  to  fight.  But  Queen  Victoria  had  to 
sign  it  before  it  went.  "My  lord,"  she  said,  "you 
must  know  that  I  will  agree  to  no  paper  that 
means  war  with  the  United  States."  So  this  didn't 
go,  but  another  in  its  stead,  pretty  stiff,  naturally, 
yet  still  possible  for  us  to  swallow.  Some  didn't 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  161 

want  to  swallow  even  this;  but  Lincoln,  humor 
ous  and  wise,  said,  "  Gentlemen,  one  war  at  a 
time;"  and  so  we  made  due  restitution,  and 
Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell  went  their  way  to 
France  and  England,  free  to  bring  about  action 
against  us  there  if  they  could  manage  it.  Cap 
tain  Wilkes  must  have  been  a  good  fellow.  His 
picture  suggests  this.  England,  in  her  English 
heart,  really  liked  what  he  had  done,  it  was  in 
its  gallant  flagrancy  so  remarkably  like  her  own 
doings  —  though  she  couldn't,  naturally,  per 
mit  such  a  performance  to  pass ;  and  a  few  years 
afterwards,  for  his  services  in  the  cause  of  explo 
ration,  her  Royal  Geographical  Society  gave  him 
a  gold  medal !  Yes ;  the  whole  thing  is  comic 
—  to-day ;  for  us,  to-day,  the  point  of  it  is,  that 
the  English  Queen  saved  us  from  a  war  with 
England. 

Within  a  year,  something  happened  that  was 
not  comic.  Lord  John  Russell,  though  warned 
and  warned,  let  the  Alabama  slip  away  to  sea, 
where  she  proceeded  to  send  our  merchant  ships 
to  the  bottom,  until  the  Kearsarge  sent  her  her 
self  to  the  bottom.  She  had  been  built  at  Liver 
pool  in  the  face  of  an  English  law  which  no  quib- 


162  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

bling  could  disguise  to  anybody  except  to  Lord 
John  Russell  and  to  those  who,  like  him,  leaned 
to  the  South.  Ten  years  later,  this  leaning  cost 
England  fifteen  million  dollars  in  damages. 

Let  us  now  listen  to  what  our  British  friends 
were  saying  in  those  years  before  Lincoln  issued 
his  Emancipation  Proclamation.  His  blockade  had 
brought  immediate  and  heavy  distress  upon  many 
English  workmen  and  their  families.  That  had 
been  April  19,  1861.  By  September,  five  sixths  of 
the  Lancashire  cotton-spinners  were  out  of  work, 
or  working  half  time.  Their  starvation  and  that 
of  their  wives  and  children  could  be  stemmed 
by  charity  alone.  I  have  talked  with  people 
who  saw  those  thousands  in  their  suffering.  Yet 
those  thousands  bore  it.  They  somehow  looked 
through  Lincoln's  express  disavowal  of  any  in 
tention  to  interfere  with  slavery,  and  saw  that 
at  bottom  our  war  was  indeed  against  slavery, 
that  slavery  was  behind  the  Southern  camou 
flage  about  independence,  and  behind  the  North 
ern  slogan  about  preserving  the  Union.  They 
saw  and  they  stuck.  "Rarely,"  writes  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  "in  the  history  of  mankind,  has 
there  been  a  more  creditable  exhibition  of  human 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  163 

sympathy."  France  was  likewise  damaged  by 
our  blockade ;  and  Napoleon  III.  would  have 
liked  to  recognize  the  South.  He  established, 
through  Maximilian,  an  empire  in  Mexico,  be 
hind  which  lay  hostility  to  our  Democracy. 
He  wished  us  defeat ;  but  he  was  afraid  to  move 
without  England,  to  whom  he  made  a  succession 
of  indirect  approaches.  These  nearly  came  to 
something  towards  the  close  of  1862.  It  was  on 
October  7th  that  Gladstone  spoke  at  Newcastle 
about  Jefferson  Davis  having  made  a  nation. 
Yet,  after  all,  England  didn't  budge,  and  thus 
held  Napoleon  back.  From  France  in  the  end 
the  South  got  neither  ships  nor  recognition,  in 
spite  of  his  deceitful  connivance  and  desire ; 
Napoleon  flirted  a  while  with  Slidell,  but  grew 
cold  when  he  saw  no  chance  of  English  co 
operation. 

Besides  John  Bright  and  Cobden,  we  had  other 
English  friends  of  influence  and  celebrity :  John 
Stuart  Mill,  Thomas  Hughes,  Goldwin  Smith, 
Leslie  Stephen,  Robert  Gladstone,  Frederic  Har 
rison  are  some  of  them.  All  from  the  first  sup 
ported  us.  All  from  the  first  worked  and  spoke 
for  us.  The  Union  and  Emancipation  Society 


164  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

was  founded.  "Your  Committee,"  says  its  final 
report  when  the  war  was  ended,  "have  issued 
and  circulated  upwards  of  four  hundred  thousand 
books,  pamphlets,  and  tracts  .  .  .  and  nearly 
five  hundred  official  and  public  meetings  have 
been  held  .  .  ."  The  president  of  this  Society, 
Mr.  Potter,  spent  thirty  thousand  dollars  in  the 
cause,  and  at  a  time  when  times  were  hard  and 
fortunes  as  well  as  cotton-spinners  in  distress 
through  our  blockade.  Another  member  of  the 
Society,  Mr.  Thompson,  writes  of  one  of  the 
public  meetings :  "...  I  addressed  a  crowded 
assembly  of  unemployed  operatives  in  the  town 
of  Hey  wood,  near  Manchester,  and  spoke  to  them 
for  two  hours  about  the  Slaveholders'  Rebellion. 
They  were  united  and  vociferous  in  the  expres 
sion  of  their  willingness  to  suffer  all  hardships 
consequent  upon  a  want  of  cotton,  if  thereby 
the  liberty  of  the  victims  of  Southern  despotism 
might  be  promoted.  All  honor  to  the  half  mil 
lion  of  our  working  population  in  Lancashire, 
Cheshire,  and  elsewhere,  who  are  bearing  with 
heroic  fortitude  the  privation  which  your  war 
has  entailed  upon  them!  .  .  .  Their  sublime 
resignation,  their  self-forgetfulness,  their  observ- 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  165 

ance  of  law,  their  whole-souled  love  of  the  cause 
of  human  freedom,  their  quick  and  clear  percep 
tion  of  the  merits  of  the  question  between  the 
North  and  the  South  .  .  .  are  extorting  the 
admiration  of  all  classes  of  the  community  .  .  ." 

How  much  of  all  this  do  you  ever  hear  from  the 
people  who  remember  the  Alabama? 

Strictly  in  accord  with  Beecher's  vivid  summary 
of  the  true  England  in  our  Civil  War,  are  some 
passages  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  John  Bigelow, 
who  was  at  that  time  our  Consul-General  at 
Paris,  and  whose  impressions,  written  to  our 
Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Seward,  on  February 
6,  1863,  are  interesting  to  compare  with  what 
Beecher  says  in  that  letter,  from  which  I  have 
already  given  extracts. 

"The  anti-slavery  meetings  in  England  are 
having  their  effect  upon  the  Government  already 
.  .  .  The  Paris  correspondent  of  the  London 
Post  also  came  to  my  house  on  Wednesday  even 
ing  ...  He  says  .  .  .  that  there  are  about  a 
dozen  persons  who  by  their  position  and  influ 
ence  over  the  organs  of  public  opinion  have  pro 
duced  all  the  bad  feeling  and  treacherous  con 
duct  of  England  towards  America.  They  are 


166  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

people  who,  as  members  of  the  Government  in 
times  past,  have  been  bullied  by  the  U.  S.  .  .  . 
they  are  not  entirely  ignorant  that  the  class 
who  are  now  trying  to  overthrow  the  Government 
were  mainly  responsible  for  the  brutality,  but 
they  think  we  as  a  nation  are  disposed  to  bully, 
and  they  are  disposed  to  assist  in  any  policy 
that  may  dismember  and  weaken  us.  These 
scars  of  wounded  pride,  however,  have  been 
carefully  concealed  from  the  public,  who  there 
fore  cannot  be  readily  made  to  see  why,  when  the 
President  has  distinctly  made  the  issue  between 
slave  labor  and  free  labor,  that  England  should  not 
go  with  the  North.  He  says  these  dozen  people 
who  rule  England  hate  us  cordially  .  .  ." 

There  were  more  than  a  dozen,  a  good  many 
more,  as  we  know  from  Charles  and  Henry  Adams. 
But  read  once  again  the  last  paragraph  of  Beecher's 
letter,  and  note  how  it  corresponds  with  what 
Mr.  Bigelow  says  about  the  feeling  which  our 
Government  (for  thirty  years  "in  the  hands  or 
under  the  influence  of  Southern  statesmen") 
had  raised  against  us  by  its  bad  manners  to  Euro 
pean  governments.  This  was  the  harvest  sown 
by  shirt-sleeves  diplomacy  and  reaped  by  Mr. 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  167 

Adams  in  1861.  Only  seven  years  before,  we 
had  gratuitously  offended  four  countries  at  once. 
Three  of  our  foreign  ministers  (two  of  them  from 
the  South)  had  met  at  Ostend  and  later  at  Aix 
in  the  interests  of  extending  slavery,  and  there, 
in  a  joint  manifesto,  had  ordered  Spain  to  sell 
us  Cuba,  or  we  would  take  Cuba  by  force.  One 
of  the  three  was  our  minister  to  Spain.  Spain 
had  received  him  courteously  as  the  representa 
tive  of  a  nation  with  whom  she  was  at  peace. 
It  was  like  ringing  the  doorbell  of  an  acquaint 
ance,  being  shown  into  the  parlor  and  telling  him 
he  must  sell  you  his  spoons  or  you  would  snatch 
them.  This  doesn't  incline  your  neighbor  to 
like  you.  But,  as  has  been  said,  Mr.  Adams  was 
an  American  who  did  know  how  to  behave,  and 
thereby  served  us  well  in  our  hour  of  need. 

We  remember  the  Alabama  and  our  English 
enemies,  we  forget  Bright,  and  Cobden,  and  all 
our  English  friends;  but  Lincoln  did  not  forget 
them.  When  a  young  man,  a  friend  of  Bright's, 
an  Englishman,  had  been  caught  here  in  a  plot 
to  seize  a  vessel  and  make  her  into  another 
Alabama,  John  Bright  asked  mercy  for  him ;  and 
here  are  Lincoln's  words  in  consequence : 


168  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"  Whereas  one  Rubery  was  convicted  on  or 
about  the  twelfth  day  of  October,  1863,  in  the 
Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  District 
of  California,  of  engaging  in,  and  giving  aid  and 
comfort  to  the  existing  rebellion  against  the 
Government  of  this  Country,  and  sentenced  to 
ten  years7  imprisonment,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of 
ten  thousand  dollars ; 

"And  whereas,  the  said  Alfred  Rubery  is  of 
the  immature  age  of  twenty  years,  and  of  highly 
respectable  parentage ; 

"And  whereas,  the  said  Alfred  Rubery  is  a 
subject  of  Great  Britain,  and  his  pardon  is  desired 
by  John  Bright,  of  England ; 

"Now,  therefore,  be  it  known  that  I,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
these  and  divers  other  considerations  me  there 
unto  moving,  and  especially  as  a  public  mark 
of  the  esteem  held  by  the  United  States  of  America 
for  the  high  character  and  steady  friendship  of 
the  said  John  Bright,  do  hereby  grant  a  pardon 
to  the  said  Alfred  Rubery,  the  same  to  begin 
and  take  effect  on  the  twentieth  day  of  January 
1864,  on  condition  that  he  leave  the  country  within 
thirty  days  from  and  after  that  date." 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  169 

Thus  Lincoln,  because  of  Bright;  and  because 
of  a  word  from  Bright  to  Charles  Sumner  about 
the  starving  cotton-spinners,  Americans  sent 
from  New  York  three  ships  with  flour  for  those 
faithful  English  friends  of  ours. 

And  then,  at  Geneva  in  1872,  England  paid 
us  for  what  the  Alabama  had  done.  This  Court 
of  Arbitration  grew  slowly ;  suggested  first  by  Mr. 
Thomas  Balch  to  Lincoln,  who  thought  the  mil 
lennium  wasn't  quite  at  hand  but  favored  "  airing 
the  idea."  The  idea  was  not  aired  easily.  Cob- 
den  would  have  brought  it  up  in  Parliament,  but 
illness  and  death  overtook  him.  The  idea  found 
but  few  other  friends.  At  last  Horace  Greeley 
"aired"  it  in  his  paper.  On  October  23,  1863, 
Mr.  Adams  said  to  Lord  John  Russell,  "I  am 
directed  to  say  that  there  is  no  fair  and  equitable 
form  of  conventional  arbitrament  or  reference 
to  which  the  United  States  will  not  be  willing  to 
submit."  This,  some  two  years  later,  Russell 
recalled,  saying  in  reply  to  a  statement  of  our 
grievances  by  Adams:  "It  appears  to  Her  Ma 
jesty's  Government  that  there  are  but  two  ques 
tions  by  which  the  claim  of  compensation  could 
be  tested;  the  one  is,  Have  the  British  Govern- 


170  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

ment  acted  with  due  diligence,  or,  in  other  words, 
in  good  faith  and  honesty,  in  the  maintenance 
of  the  neutrality  they  proclaimed?  The  other 
is,  Have  the  law  officers  of  the  Crown  properly 
understood  the  foreign  enlistment  act,  when  they 
declined,  in  June  1862  to  advise  the  detention 
and  seizure  of  the  Alabama,  and  on  other  occa 
sions  when  they  were  asked  to  detain  other  ships, 
building  or  fitting  in  British  ports?  It  appears 
to  Her  Majesty 's  Government  that  neither  of 
these  questions  could  be  put  to  a  foreign  govern 
ment  with  any  regard  to  the  dignity  and  char 
acter  of  the  British  Crown  and  the  British  Nation. 
Her  Majesty's  Government  are  the  sole  guard 
ians  of  their  own  honor.  They  cannot  admit 
that  they  have  acted  with  bad  "faith  in  main 
taining  the  neutrality  they  professed.  The  law 
officers  of  the  Crown  must  be  held  to  be  better 
interpreters  of  a  British  statute  than  any  foreign 
Government  can  be  presumed  to  be  ..."  He 
consented  to  a  commission,  but  drew  the  line  at 
any  probing  of  England's  good  faith. 

We  persisted.  In  1868,  Lord  Westbury,  Lord 
High  Chancellor,  declared  in  the  House  of  Lords 
that  "the  animus  with  which  the  neutral  powers 
acted  was  the  only  true  criterion." 


ON  THE  RAGGED  EDGE  171 

This  is  the  test  which  we  asked  should  be 
applied.  We  quoted  British  remarks  about  us, 
Gladstone,  for  example,  as  evidence  of  unfriendly 
and  insincere  animus  on  the  part  of  those  at 
the  head  of  the  British  Government. 

Replying  to  our  pressing  the  point  of  animus, 
the  British  Government  reasserted  Russell's  re 
fusal  to  recognize  or  entertain  any  question  of 
England's  good  faith:  "first,  because  it  would 
be  inconsistent  with  the  self-respect  which  every 
government  is  bound  to  feel.  .  .  ."  In  Mr. 
John  Bassett  Moore's  History  of  International 
Arbitration,  Vol.  I,  pages  496-497,  or  in  papers 
relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  Vol.  II, 
Geneva  Arbitration,  page  204  .  .  .  Part  1,  In 
troductory  Statement,  you  will  find  the  whole 
of  this.  What  I  give  here  suffices  to  show  the 
position  we  ourselves  and  England  took  about 
the  Alabama  case.  She  backed  down.  Her  good 
faith  was  put  in  issue,  and  she  paid  our  direct 
claims.  She  ate  "humble  pie."  We  had  to  eat 
humble  pie  in  the  affair  of  the  Trent.  It  has 
been  done  since.  It  is  not  pleasant,  but  it  may 
be  beneficial. 

Such  is  the  story  of  the  true  England  and  the 


172  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

true  America  in  1861 ;  the  divided  North  with 
which  Lincoln  had  to  deal,  the  divided  England 
where  our  many  friends  could  do  little  to  check 
our  influential  enemies,  until  Lincoln  came  out 
plainly  against  slavery.  I  have  had  to  compress 
much,  but  I  have  omitted  nothing  material, 
of  which  I  am  aware.  The  facts  would  embarrass 
those  who  determine  to  assert  that  England  was 
our  undivided  enemy  during  our  Civil  War,  if 
facts  ever  embarrassed  a  complex.  Those  afflicted 
with  the  complex  can  keep  their  eyes  upon  the 
Alabama  and  the  London  Times,  and  avert  them 
from  Bright,  and  Cobden,  and  the  cotton-spin 
ners,  and  the  Union  and  Emancipation  Society, 
and  Queen  Victoria.  But  to  any  reader  of  this 
whose  complex  is  not  incurable,  or  who  has  none, 
I  will  put  this  question :  What  opinion  of  the 
brains  of  any  Englishman  would  you  have  if 
he  formed  his  idea  of  the  United  States  exclu 
sively  from  the  newspapers  of  William  Randolph 
Hearst? 


CHAPTER   XIII 
BENEFITS  FORGOT 


CHAPTER    XIII 

BENEFITS   FORGOT 

IN  our  next  war,  our  war  with  Spain  in  1898, 
England  saved  us  from  Germany.  She  did  it 
from  first  to  last ;  her  position  was  unmistakable, 
and  every  determining  act  of  hers  was  as  our 
friend.  The  service  that  she  rendered  us  in  warn 
ing  Germany  to  keep  out  of  it,  was  even  greater 
than  her  suggestion  of  our  Monroe  doctrine  in 
1823;  for  in  1823  she  put  us  on  guard  against 
meditated,  but  remote,  assault  from  Europe, 
while  in  1898  she  actively  averted  a  serious  and 
imminent  peril.  As  the  threat  of  her  fleet  had 
obstructed  Napoleon  in  1803,  and  the  Holy  Alli 
ance  in  1823,  so  in  1898  it  blocked  the  Kaiser. 
Late  in  that  year,  when  it  was  all  over,  the  dis 
appointed  and  baffled  Kaiser  wrote  to  a  friend  of 
Joseph  Chamberlain,  "If  I  had  had  a  larger  fleet 
I  would  have  taken  Uncle  Sam  by  the  scruff  of 
the  neck."  Have  you  ever  read  what  our  own 

175 


176  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

fleet  was  like  in  those  days?  Or  our  Army? 
Lucky  it  was  for  us  that  we  had  to  deal  only  with 
Spain.  And  even  the  Spanish  fleet  would  have 
been  a  much  graver  opponent  in  Manila  Bay, 
but  for  Lord  Cromer.  On  its  way  from  Spain 
through  the  Suez  Canal  a  formidable  part  of 
Spain's  navy  stopped  to  coal  at  Port  Said.  There 
is  a  law  about  the  coaling  of  belligerent  war 
ships  in  neutral  ports.  Lord  Cromer  could  have 
construed  that  law  just  as  well  against  us.  His 
construction  brought  it  about  that  those  Spanish 
ships  couldn't  get  to  Manila  Bay  in  time  to  take 
part  against  Admiral  Dewey.  The  Spanish  War 
revealed  that  our  Navy  could  hit  eight  times 
out  of  a  hundred,  and  was  in  other  respects  un 
prepared  and  utterly  inadequate  to  cope  with  a 
first-class  power.  In  consequence  of  this,  and  the 
criticisms  of  our  Navy  Department,  which  Ad 
miral  Sims  as  a  young  man  had  written,  Roosevelt 
took  the  steps  he  did  in  his  first  term.  Three 
ticklish  times  in  that  Spanish  War  England  stood 
our  friend  against  Germany.  When  it  broke 
out,  German  agents  approached  Mr.  Balfour, 
proposing  that  England  join  in  a  European  com 
bination  in  Spam's  favor.  Mr.  Balfour's  refusal 


BENEFITS  FORGOT  177 

is  common  knowledge,  except  to  the  monomaniac 
with  his  complex.  Next  came  the  action  of  Lord 
Cromer,  and  finally  that  moment  in  Manila 
Bay  when  England  took  her  stand  by  our  side 
and  Germany  saw  she  would  have  to  fight  us 
both,  if  she  fought  at  all. 

If  you  saw  any  German  or  French  papers  at 
the  time  of  our  troubles  with  Spain,  you  saw 
undisguised  hostility.  If  you  have  talked  with 
any  American  who  was  in  Paris  during  that  April 
of  1898,  your  impression  will  be  more  vivid  still. 
There  was  an  outburst  of  European  hate  for  us. 
Germany,  France,  and  Austria  all  looked  expect 
antly  to  England  —  and  England  disappointed 
their  expectations.  The  British  Press  was  as 
much  for  us  as  the  French  and  German  press 
were  hostile;  the  London  Spectator  said:  "We 
are  not,  and  we  do  not  pretend  to  be,  an  agree 
able  people,  but  when  there  is  trouble  in  the 
family,  we  know  where  our  hearts  are/' 

In  those  same  days  (somewhere  about  the  third 
week  in  April,  1898),  at  the  British  Embassy  in 
Washington,  occurred  a  scene  of  significance 
and  interest,  which  has  probably  been  told  less 
often  than  that  interview  between  Mr.  Balfour 

N 


178  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

and  the  Kaiser's  emissary  in  London.  The 
British  Ambassador  was  standing  at  his  window, 
looking  out  at  the  German  Embassy,  across  the 
street.  With  him  was  a  member  of  his  diplo 
matic  household.  The  two  watched  what  was 
happening.  One  by  one,  the  representatives 
of  various  European  nations  were  entering  the 
door  of  the  German  Embassy.  "Do  you  see 
them?"  said  the  Ambassador's  companion; 
"they'll  all  be  in  there  soon.  There.  That's 
the  last  of  them."  "I  didn't  notice  the  French 
Ambassador."  "Yes,  he's  gone  in,  too."  "I'm 
surprised  at  that.  I'm  sorry  for  that.  I  didn't 
think  he  would  be  one  of  them,"  said  the  British 
Ambassador.  "Now,  I'll  tell  you  what.  They'll 
all  be  coming  over  here  in  a  little  while.  I  want 
you  to  wait  and  be  present."  Shortly  this  pre 
diction  was  verified.  Over  from  the  German 
Embassy  came  the  whole  company  on  a  visit 
to  the  British  Ambassador,  that  he  might  add 
his  signature  to  a  document  to  which  they  had 
affixed  theirs.  He  read  it  quietly.  We  may 
easily  imagine  its  purport,  since  we  know  of 
the  meditated  European  coalition  against  us  at 
the  time  of  our  war  with  Spain.  Then  the  British 


BENEFITS  FORGOT  179 

Ambassador  remarked:  "I  have  no  orders  from 
my  Government  to  sign  any  such  document  as 
that.  And  if  I  did  have,  I  should  resign  my  post 
rather  than  sign  it."  A  pause :  The  company 
fell  silent.  "Then  what  will  your  Excellency 
do?"  inquired  one  visitor.  "If  you  will  all  do 
me  the  honor  of  coming  back  to-morrow,  I  shall 
have  another  document  ready  which  all  of  us 
can  sign."  That  is  what  happened  to  the  Euro 
pean  coalition  at  this  end. 

Some  few  years  later,  that  British  Ambassador 
came  to  die ;  and  to  the  British  Embassy  repaired 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  "Would  it  be  possible 
for  us  to  arrange,"  he  said,  "a  funeral  more  hon 
ored  and  marked  than  the  United  States  has 
ever  accorded  to  any  one  not  a  citizen  ?  I  should 
like  it.  And,"  he  suddenly  added,  shaking  his 
fist  at  the  German  Embassy  over  the  way,  "I'd 
like  to  grind  all  their  noses  in  the  dirt." 

Confronted  with  the  awkward  fact  that  Britain 
was  almost  unanimously  with  us,  from  Mr.  Bal- 
four  down  through  the  British  press  to  the  British 
people,  those  nations  whose  ambassadors  had 
paid  so  unsuccessful  a  call  at  the  British  Em 
bassy  had  to  give  it  up.  Their  coalition  never 


180  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

came  off.  Such  a  thing  couldn't  come  off  with 
out  England,  and  England  said  No. 

Next,  Lord  Cromer,  at  Port  Said,  stretched  out 
the  arm  of  international  law,  and  laid  it  upon  the 
Spanish  fleet.  Belligerents  may  legally  take  coal 
enough  at  neutral  ports  to  reach  their  nearest 
"home  port."  That  Spanish  fleet  was  on  its 
way  from  Spain  to  Manila  through  the  Suez 
Canal.  It  could  have  reached  there,  had  Lord 
Cromer  allowed  it  coal  enough  to  make  the 
nearest  home  port  ahead  of  it  —  Manila.  But 
there  was  a  home  port  behind  it,  still  nearer, 
namely,  Barcelona.  He  let  it  take  coal  enough 
to  get  back  to  Barcelona.  Thus,  England  again 
stepped  in. 

The  third  time  was  in  Manila  Bay  itself,  after 
Dewey's  victory,  and  while  he  was  in  occupation 
of  the  place.  Once  more  the  Kaiser  tried  it,  not 
discouraged  by  his  failure  with  Mr.  Balfour  and 
the  British  Government.  He  desired  the  Philip 
pines  for  himself ;  we  had  not  yet  acquired  them ; 
we  were  policing  them,  superintending  the  harbor, 
administering  whatever  had  fallen  to  us  from 
Spain's  defeat.  The  Kaiser  sent,  under  Admiral 
Diedrich,  a  squadron  stronger  than  Dewey's. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT  181 

Dewey  indicated  where  the  German  was  to  anchor. 
"I  am  here  by  the  order  of  his  Majesty  the  Ger 
man  Emperor,"  said  Diedrich,  and  chose  his  own 
place  to  anchor.  He  made  it  quite  plain  in  other 
ways  that  he  was  taking  no  orders  from  America. 
Dewey,  so  report  has  it,  at  last  told  him  that 
"if  he  wanted  a  fight  he  could  have  it  at  the 
drop  of  the  hat."  Then  it  was  that  the  German 
called  on  the  English  Admiral,  Chichester,  who 
was  likewise  at  hand,  anchored  in  Manila  Bay. 
"What  would  you  do,"  inquired  Diedrich,  "in 
the  event  of  trouble  between  Admiral  Dewey  and 
myself?"  "That  is  a  secret  known  only  to 
Admiral  Dewey  and  me,"  said  the  Englishman. 
Plainer  talk  could  hardly  be.  Diedrich,  though 
a  German,  understood  it.  He  returned  to  his 
flagship.  What  he  saw  next  morning  was  the 
British  cruiser  in  a  new  place,  interposed  between 
Dewey  and  himself.  Once  more,  he  understood  ; 
and  he  and  his  squadron  sailed  off;  and  it  was 
soon  after  this  incident  that  the  disappointed 
Kaiser  wrote  that,  if  only  his  fleet  had  been 
larger,  he  would  have  taken  us  by  the  scruff  of 
the  neck. 

Tell  these  things  to  the  next  man  you  hear 


182  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

talking  about  George  III  or  the  Alabama.  You 
may  meet  him  in  front  of  a  bulletin  board,  01;  in 
a  drawing-room.  He  is  amongst  us  everywhere, 
in  the  street  and  in  the  house.  He  may  be  a 
paid  propagandist  or  merely  a  silly  ignorant 
puppet.  But  whatever  he  is,  he  will  not  find 
much  to  say  in  response,  unless  it  be  vain,  sterile 
chatter.  True  come-back  will  fail  him  as  it 
failed  that  man  by  the  bulletin  board  who  asked, 
"What  is  England  doing,  anyhow?"  and  his 
neighbor  answered,  "Her  fleet's  keeping  the 
Kaiser  out  of  your  front  yard." 


CHAPTER   XIV 
ENGLAND   THE   SLACKER! 


CHAPTER   XIV 

ENGLAND    THE    SLACKER ! 

WHAT  did  England  do  in  the  war,  anyhow  ? 

Let  us  have  these  disregarded  facts  also.  From 
the  shelves  of  history  I  have  pulled  down  and  dis 
played  the  facts  which  our  school  textbooks 
have  suppressed ;  I  have  told  the  events  wherein 
England  has  stood  our  timely  friend  throughout 
a  century ;  events  which  our  implanted  prejudice 
leads  us  to  ignore,  or  to  forget;  events  which 
show  that  any  one  who  says  England  is  our 
hereditary  enemy  might  just  about  as  well  say 
twice  two  is  five. 

What  did  England  do  in  the  war,  anyhow? 

They  go  on  asking  it.  The  propagandists,  the 
prompted  puppets,-  the  paid  parrots  of  the  press, 
go  on  saying  these  eight  senseless  words  because 
they  are  easy  to  say,  since  the  man  who  can 
answer  them  is  generally  not  there :  to  every 
man  who  is  a  responsible  master  of  facts  we  have 
-  well,  how  many  ?  —  irresponsible  shouters  in 

185 


186  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

this  country.  What  is  your  experience?  How 
often  is  it  your  luck  —  as  it  was  mine  in  front 
of  the  bulletin  board  —  to  see  a  fraud  or  a  fool 
promptly  and  satisfactorily  put  in  his  place? 
Make  up  your  mind  that  wherever  you  hear 
any  person  whatsoever,  male  or  female,  clean 
or  unclean,  dressed  in  jeans,  or  dressed  in  silks 
and  laces,  inquire  what  England  "did  in  the  war, 
anyhow?"  such  person  either  shirks  knowledge,  or 
else  is  a  fraud  or  a  fool.  Tell  them  what  the  man 
said  in  the  street  about  the  Kaiser  and  our  front 
yard,  but  don't  stop  there.  Tell  them  that  in  May, 
1918,  England  was  sending  men  of  fifty  and  boys 
of  eighteen  and  a  half  to  the  front ;  that  in  August, 
1918,  every  third  male  available  between  those 
years  was  fighting,  that  eight  and  a  half  million 
men  for  army  and  navy  were  raised  by  the  British 
Empire,  of  which  Ireland's  share  was  two  and 
three  tenths  per  cent,  Wales  three  and  seven 
tenths,  Scotland's  eight  and  three  tenths,  and 
England's  more  than  sixty  per  cent;  and  that 
this,  taken  proportionately  to  our  greater  popu 
lation  would  have  amounted  to  about  thirteen 
million  Americans,  When  the  war  started,  the 
British  Empire  maintained  three  soldiers  out  of 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!       187 

every  2600  of  the  population;  her  entire  army, 
regular  establishment,  reserve  and  territorial 
forces,  amounted  to  seven  hundred  thousand 
men.  Our  casualties  were  three  hundred  and 
twenty-two  thousand,  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
two.  The  casualties  in  the  British  Army  were 
three  million,  forty-nine  thousand,  nine  hundred 
and  seventy-one  —  a  million  more  than  we  sent 
-  and  of  these  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  thou 
sand,  seven  hundred  and  four,  were  killed.  Of  her 
Navy,  thirty-three  thousand  three  hundred  and 
sixty-one  were  killed,  six  thousand  four  hundred 
and  five  wounded  and  missing;  of  her  merchant 
marine  fourteen  thousand  six  hundred  and  sixty- 
one  were  killed;  a  total  of  forty-eight  thousand 
killed  —  or  ten  per  cent  of  all  in  active  service. 
Some  of  those  of  the  merchant  marine  who  escaped 
drowning  through  torpedoes  and  mines  went  back 
to  sea  after  being  torpedoed  five,  six,  and  seven 
times. 

What  did  England  do  in  the  war,  anyhow? 

Through  four  frightful  years  she  fought  with 

splendor,   she   suffered   with   splendor,    she   held 

on  with  splendor.     The  second  battle  of  Ypres  is 

but  one  drop  in  the  sea  of  her  epic  courage ;  yet 


188  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

it  would  fill  full  a  canto  of  a  poem.  So  spent  was 
Britain's  single  line,  so  worn  and  thin,  that  after 
all  the  men  available  were  brought,  gaps  remained. 
No  more  ammunition  was  coming  to  these  men, 
the  last  rounds  had  been  served.  Wet  through, 
heavy  with  mud,  they  were  shelled  for  three  days 
to  prevent  sleep.  Many  came  at  last  to  sleep 
standing ;  and  being  jogged  awake  when  officers  of 
the  line  passed  down  the  trenches,  would  salute 
and  instantly  be  asleep  again.  On  the  fourth  day, 
with  the  Kaiser  come  to  watch  them  crumble, 
three  lines  of  Huns,  wave  after  wave  of  Germany's 
picked  troops,  fell  and  broke  upon  this  single  line 
of  British  —  and  it  held.  The  Kaiser,  had  he 
known  of  the  exhausted  ammunition  and  the 
mounded  dead,  could  have  walked  unarmed  to 
the  Channel.  But  he  never  knew. 

Surgeons  being  scantier  than  men  at  Ypres,  one 
with  a  compound  fracture  of  the  thigh  had  himself 
propped  up,  and  thus  all  day  worked  on  the 
wounded  at  the  front.  He  knew  it  meant  death 
for  him.  The  day  over,  he  let  them  carry  him  to 
the  rear,  and  there,  from  blood-poisoning,  he  died. 
Thus  through  four  frightful  years,  the  British  met 
their  duty  and  their  death. 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!  189 

There  is  the  great  story  of  the  little  penny 
steamers  of  the  Thames  —  a  story  lost  amid 
the  gigantic  whole.  Who  will  tell  it  right? 
Who  will  make  this  drop  of  perfect  valor  shine 
in  prose  or  verse  for  future  eyes  to  see  ?  Imagine 
a  Hoboken  ferry  boat,  because  her  country 
needed  her,  starting  for  San  Francisco  around 
Cape  Horn,  and  getting  there.  Some  ten  or 
eleven  penny  steamers  under  their  own  steam 
started  from  the  Thames  down  the  Channel, 
across  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  past  Gibraltar,  and 
through  the  submarined  Mediterranean  for  the 
River  Tigris.  Boats  of  shallow  draught  were 
urgently  needed  on  the  River  Tigris.  Four  or 
five  reached  their  destination.  Where  are  the 
rest? 

What  did  England  do  in  the  war,  anyhow? 

During  1917-1918  Britain's  armies  held  the 
enemy  in  three  continents  and  on  six  fronts,  and 
cooperated  with  her  Allies  on  two  more  fronts. 
Her  dead,  those  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight 
thousand  dead,  lay  by  the  Tigris,  the  Zambesi, 
the  ^Egean,  and  across  the  world  to  Flanders' 
fields.  Between  March  21st  and  April  17th, 
1918,  the  Huns  in  their  drive  used  127  divisions, 


190  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

and  of  these  102  were  concentrated  against  the 
British.  That  was  in  Flanders.  Britain,  at  the 
same  time  she  was  fighting  in  Flanders,  had  also 
at  various  tunes  shared  in  the  fighting  in  Russia, 
Kiaochau,  New  Guinea,  Samoa,  Mesopotamia, 
Palestine,  Egypt,  the  Sudan,  Cameroons,  Togo- 
land,  East  Africa,  South  West  Africa,  Saloniki, 
Aden,  Persia,  and  the  northwest  frontier  of  India. 
Britain  cleared  twelve  hundred  thousand  square 
miles  of  the  enemy  in  German  colonies.  While 
fighting  in  Mesopotamia,  her  soldiers  were  re 
constructing  at  the  same  time.  They  reclaimed 
and  cultivated  more  than  1100  square  miles  of 
land  there,  which  produced  in  consequence  enough 
food  to  save  two  million  tons  of  shipping  an 
nually  for  the  Allies.  In  Palestine  and  Mesopo 
tamia  alone,  British  troops  in  1917  took  23,590 
prisoners.  In  1918,  in  Palestine  from  Septem 
ber  18th  to  October  7th,  they  took  79,000  pris 
oners. 

What  did  England  do  in  the  war,  anyhow? 

With    " French's    contemptible    little    army" 

she  saved  France  at  the  start  —  but  I'll  skip 

that  —  except  to  mention  that  one  division  lost 

10,000  out  of  12,000  men,  and  350  out  of  400 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!  191 

officers.  At  Zeebrugge  and  Ostend  —  do  not 
forget  the  Vindictive  —  she  dealt  with  sub 
marines  in  April  and  May,  1918  —  but  I'll  skip 
that;  I  cannot  set  down  all  that  she  did,  either 
at  the  start,  or  nearing  the  finish,  or  at  any  par 
ticular  moment  during  those  four  years  and  three 
months  that  she  was  helping  to  hold  Germany 
off  from  the  throat  of  the  world ;  it  would  make 
a  very  thick  book.  But  I  am  giving  you  enough, 
I  think,  wherewith  to  answer  the  ignorant,  and 
the  frauds,  and  the  fools.  Tell  them  that  from 
1916  to  1918  Great  Britain  increased  her  tillage 
area  by  four  million  acres :  wheat  39  per  cent, 
barley  11,  oats  35,  potatoes  50  —  in  spite  of  the 
shortage  of  labor.  She  used  wounded  soldiers, 
college  boys  and  girls,  boy  scouts,  refugees,  and 
she  produced  the  biggest  grain  crop  in  fifty  years. 
She  started  fourteen  hundred  thousand  new  war 
gardens ;  most  of  those  who  worked  them  had 
worked  already  a  long  day  in  a  munition  factory. 
These  devoted  workers  increased  the  potato  crop 
in  1917  by  three  million  tons  —  and  thus  released 
British  provision  ships  to  carry  our  soldiers  across. 
In  that  Boston  speech  which  one  of  my  correspond 
ents  referred  to,  our  Secretary  of  the  Navy  did 


192  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

not  mention  this.  Mention  it  yourself.  And 
tell  them  about  the  boy  scouts  and  the  women. 
Fifteen  thousand  of  the  boy  scouts  joined  the 
colors,  and  over  fifty  thousand  of  the  younger 
members  served  in  various  ways  at  home. 

Of  England's  women  seven  million  were  en 
gaged  in  work  on  munitions  and  other  necessaries 
and  apparatus  of  war.  The  terrible  test  of  that 
second  battle  of  Ypres,  to  which  I  have  made 
brief  allusion  above,  wrought  an  industrial  revolu 
tion  in  the  manufacture  of  shells.  The  energy  of 
production  rose  at  a  rate  which  may  be  indicated 
by  two  or  three  comparisons :  In  1917  as  many 
heavy  howitzer  shells  were  turned  out  in  a  single 
day  as  in  the  whole  first  year  of  the  war,  as  many 
medium  shells  in  five  days,  and  as  many  field- 
gun  shells  in  eight  days.  Or  in  other  words,  45 
times  as  many  field-gun  shells,  73  times  as  many 
medium,  and  365  times  as  many  heavy  howitzer 
shells,  were  turned  out  in  1917  as  in  the  first  year 
of  the  war.  These  shells  were  manufactured  in 
buildings  totaling  fifteen  miles  in  length,  forty  feet 
in  breadth,  with  more  than  ten  thousand  machine 
tools  driven  by  seventeen  miles  of  shafting  with 
an  energy  of  twenty-five  thousand  horse-power 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!  193 

and  a  weekly  output  of  over  ten  thousand  tons' 
weight  of  projectiles  —  all  this  largely  worked 
by  the  women  of  England.  While  the  fleet 
had  increased  its  personnel  from  136,000  to  about 
400,000,  and  2,000,000  men  by  July,  1915,  had 
voluntarily  enlisted  in  the  army  before  England 
gave  up  her  birthright  and  accepted  compulsory 
service,  the  women  of  England  left  their  ordinary 
lives  to  fabricate  the  necessaries  of  war.  They 
worked  at  home  while  their  husbands,  brothers, 
and  sons  fought  and  died  on  six  battle  fronts 
abroad  —  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  thousand 
died,  remember;  do  you  remember  the  number 
of  Americans  killed  in  action? —  less  than  thirty- 
six  thousand  ;  —  those  English  women  worked  on, 
seven  millions  of  them  at  least,  on  milk  carts, 
motor-busses,  elevators,  steam  engines,  and  in 
making  ammunition.  Never  before  had  any 
woman  worked  on  more  than  150  of  the  500 
different  processes  that  go  to  the  making  of  mu 
nitions.  They  now  handled  T.  N.  T.,  and  ful 
minate  of  mercury,  more  deadly  still;  helped 
build  guns,  gun  carriages,  and  three-and-a-half 
ton  army  camions ;  worked  overhead  traveling 
cranes  for  moving  the  boilers  of  battleships; 


194  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

turned  lathes,  made  every  part  of  an  aeroplane. 

And  who  were  these  seven  million  women? 
The  eldest  daughter  of  a  duke  and  the  daughter 
of  a  general  won  distinction  in  advanced  munition 
work.  The  only  daughter  of  an  old  Army  family 
broke  down  after  a  year's  work  in  a  base  hospital 
in  France,  was  ordered  six  months'  rest  at  home, 
but  after  two  months  entered  a  munition  factory 
as  an  ordinary  employee  and  after  nine  months' 
work  had  lost  but  five  minutes  working  time. 
The  mother  of  seven  enlisted  sons  went  into 
munitions  not  to  be  behind  them  in  serving 
England,  and  one  of  them  wrote  her  she  was 
probably  killing  more  Germans  than  any  of  the 
family.  The  stewardess  of  a  torpedoed  passenger 
ship  was  among  the  few  survivors.  Reaching 
land,  she  got  a  job  at  a  capstan  lathe.  Those 
were  the  seven  million  women  of  England  - 
daughters  of  dukes,  torpedoed  stewardesses, 
and  everything  between. 

Seven  hundred  thousand  of  these  were  engaged 
on  munition  work  proper.  They  did  from  60 
to  70  per  cent  of  all  the  machine  work  on  shells, 
fuses,  and  trench  warfare  supplies,  and  1450  of 
them  were  trained  mechanics  to  the  Royal  Fly- 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER  I  195 

ing  Corps.  They  were  employed  upon  practically 
every  operation  in  factory,  in  foundry,  in  labora 
tory,  and  chemical  works,  of  which  they  were 
physically  capable;  in  making  of  gauges,  forging 
billets,  making  fuses,  cartridges,  bullets—  ''  look 
what  they  can  do,"  said  a  foreman,  " ladies  from 
homes  where  they  sat  about  and  were  waited 
upon."  They  also  made  optical  glass;  drilled 
and  tapped  in  the  shipyards;  renewed  electric 
wires  and  fittings,  wound  armatures;  lacquered 
guards  for  lamps  and  radiator  fronts;  repaired 
junction  and  section  boxes,  fire  control  instru 
ments,  automatic  searchlights.  "We  can  hardly 
believe  our  eyes,"  said  another  foreman,  "when 
we  see  the  heavy  stuff  brought  to  and  from  the 
shops  in  motor  lorries  driven  by  girls.  Before 
the  war  it  was  all  carted  by  horses  and  men. 
The  girls  do  the  job  all  right,  though,  and  the 
only  thing  they  ever  complain  about  is  that 
their  toes  get  cold."  They  worked  without 
hesitation  from  twelve  to  fourteen  hours  a  day, 
or  a  night,  for  seven  days  a  week,  and  with  the 
voluntary  sacrifice  of  public  holidays. 

That  is  not  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  the  women 
of    England   did  —  I    skip    their    welfare    work, 


196  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

recreation  work,  nursing  —  but  it  is  enough 
wherewith  to  answer  the  ignorant,  or  the  fraud, 
or  the  fool. 

What  did  England  do  in  the  war,  anyhow  ? 

On  August  8,  1914,  Lord  Kitchener  asked  for 
100,000  volunteers.  He  had  them  within  fourteen 
days.  In  the  first  week  of  September  175,000 
men  enrolled,  30,000  in  a  single  day.  Eleven 
months  later,  two  million  had  enlisted.  Ten 
months  later,  five  million  and  forty-one  thousand 
had  voluntarily  enrolled  in  the  Army  and  Navy. 

In  1914  Britain  had  in  her  Royal  Naval  Air 
Service  64  aeroplanes  and  800  airmen.  In  1917 
she  had  many  thousand  aeroplanes  and  42,000 
airmen.  In  her  Royal  Flying  Corps  she  had  in 
1914,  66  planes  and  100  men;  in  1917,  several 
thousand  planes  and  men  by  tens  of  thousands. 
In  the  first  nine  months  of  1917  British  airmen 
brought  down  876  enemy  machines  and  drove 
down  759  out  of  control.  From  July,  1917,  to 
June,  1918,  4102  enemy  machines  were  destroyed 
or  brought  down  with  a  loss  of  1213  machines. 

Besides  financing  her  own  war  costs  she  had  by 
October,  1917,  loaned  eight  hundred  million  dollars 
to  the  Dominions  and  five  billion  five  hundred 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER  1  197 

million  to  the  Allies.  She  raised  five  billion  in 
thirty  days.  In  the  first  eight  months  of  1918 
she  contributed  to  the  various  forms  of  war  loan 
at  the  average  rate  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-four 
million,  eight  hundred  thousand  a  week. 

Is  that  enough?     Enough  to  show  what  Eng 
land  did  in  the  War?     No,  it  is  not  enough  for 
such  people  as  continue  to  ask  what  she  did. 
Nothing    would    suffice    these    persons.     During 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  War  it  was  possible  that 
the  question  could  be  asked  honestly  —  though 
never  intelligently  —  because  the  facts  and  figures 
were  not  at  that  time  always  accessible.     They 
were  still  piling  up,  they  were  scattered  about, 
mention   of   them   was   incidental   and   fugitive, 
they  could  be  missed  by  anybody  who  was  not 
diligently  alert  to  find  them.     To-day  it  is  quite 
otherwise.     The  facts  and  figures  have  been  com 
piled,  arranged,  published  in  accessible  and  con 
venient  form ;  therefore  to-day,  the  man  or  woman 
who  persists  in  asking  what  England  did  in  the 
war   is   not   honest   but    dishonest   or   mentally 
spotted,    and    does   not   want    to   be    answered. 
They    don't    want    to    know.     The    question    is 
merely  a   camouflage  of  their   spite,   and  were 


198  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

every  item  given  of  the  gigantic  and  magnificent 
contribution  that  England  made  to  the  defeat  of 
the  Kaiser  and  all  his  works,  it  would  not  stop 
their  evil  mouths.  Not  for  them  am  I  here  setting 
forth  a  part  of  what  England  did;  it  is  for  the 
convenience  of  the  honest  American,  who  does 
want  to  know,  that  my  collection  of  facts  is 
made  from  the  various  sources  which  he  may  not 
have  the  time  or  the  means  to  look  up  for  himself. 
For  his  benefit  I  add  some  particulars  concerning 
the  British  Navy  which  kept  the  Kaiser  out  of 
our  front  yard. 

Admiral  Mahan  said  in  his  book  —  and  he  was 
an  American  of  whose  knowledge  and  wisdom 
Congress  seems  to  have  known  nothing  and  cared 
less — "Why  do  English  innate  political  concep 
tions  of  popular  representative  government,  of  the 
balance  of  law  and  liberty,  prevail  in  North  Amer 
ica  from  the  Arctic  Circle  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific?  Because  the 
command  of  the  sea  at  the  decisive  era  belonged 
to  Great  Britain."  We  have  seen  that  the  deci 
sive  era  was  when  Napoleon's  mouth  watered 
for  Louisiana,  and  when  England  took  her  stand 
behind  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!  199 

Admiral  Sims  said  in  the  second  installment  of 
his  narrative  The  Victory  at  Sea,  published 
in  The  World's  Work  for  October,  1919,  at  page 
619:  ".  .  .  Let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  an 
earthquake,  or  some  other  great  natural  disturb 
ance,  had  engulfed  the  British  fleet  at  Scapa 
Flow.  The  world  would  then  have  been  at 
Germany's  mercy  and  all  the  destroyers  the 
Allies  could  have  put  upon  the  sea  would  have 
availed  them  nothing,  for  the  German  battleships 
and  battle  cruisers  could  have  sunk  them  or 
driven  them  into  their  ports.  Then  Allied  com 
merce  would  have  been  the  prey,  not  only  of  the 
submarines,  which  could  have  operated  with  the 
utmost  freedom,  but  of  the  German  surface 
craft  as  well.  In  a  few  weeks  the  British  food 
supplies  would  have  been  exhausted.  There 
would  have  been  an  early  end  to  the  soldiers  and 
munitions  which  Britain  was  constantly  sending 
to  France.  The  United  States  could  have  sent 
no  forces  to  the  Western  front,  and  the  result 
would  have  been  the  surrender  which  the  Allies 
themselves,  in  the  spring  of  1917,  regarded  as 
a  not  remote  possibility.  America  would  then 
have  been  compelled  to  face  the  German  power 


200  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

alone,  and  to  face  it  long  before  we  had  had  an 
opportunity  to  assemble  our  resources  and  equip 
our  armies.  The  world  was  preserved  from  all 
these  calamities  because  the  destroyer  and  the 
convoy  solved  the  problem  of  the  submarines,  and 
because  back  of  these  agencies  of  victory  lay 
Admiral  Beatty's  squadrons,  holding  at  arm's 
length  the  German  surface  ships  while  these 
comparatively  fragile  craft  were  saving  the  liber 
ties  of  the  world." 

Yes.  The  High  Seas  Fleet  of  Germany,  costing 
her  one  billion  five  hundred  million  dollars,  was 
bottled  up.  Five  million  five  hundred  thousand 
tons  of  German  shipping  and  one  million  tons  of 
Austrian  shipping  were  driven  off  the  seas  or 
captured;  oversea  trade  and  oversea  colonies 
were  cut  off.  Two  million  oversea  Huns  of  fight 
ing  age  were  hindered  from  joining  the  enemy. 
Ocean  commerce  and  communication  were  stopped 
for  the  Huns  and  secured  to  the  Allies.  In  1916, 
2100  mines  were  swept  up  and  89  mine  sweepers 
lost.  These  mine  sweepers  and  patrol  boats 
numbered  12  in  1914,  and  3300  by  1918.  To 
patrol  the  seas  British  ships  had  to  steam  eight 
million  miles  in  a  single  month.  During  the  four 


ENGLAND  THE  SLACKER!  201 

years  of  the  war  they  transported  oversea  more 
than  thirteen  million  men  (losing  but  2700  through 
enemy  action)  as  well  as  transporting  two  million 
horses  and  mules,  five  hundred  thousand  vehicles, 
twenty-five  million  tons  of  explosives,  fifty-one 
million  tons  of  oil  and  fuel,  one  hundred  and  thirty 
million  tons  of  food  and  other  materials  for  the 
use  of  the  Allies.  In  one  month  three  hundred 
and  fifty-five  thousand  men  were  carried  from 
England  to  France. 

It  was  after  our  present  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
in  his  speech  in  Boston  to  which  allusion  has  been 
made,  had  given  our  navy  all  and  the  British 
navy  none  of  the  credit  of  conveying  our  soldiers 
overseas,  that  Admiral  Sims  repaired  the  singular 
oblivion  of  the  Secretary.  We  Americans  should 
know  the  truth,  he  said.  We  had  not  been  too 
accurately  informed.  We  did  not  seem  to  have 
been  told  by  anybody,  for  instance,  that  of  the 
five  thousand  anti-submarine  craft  operating 
day  and  night  in  the  infested  waters,  we  had  160, 
or  3  per  cent ;  that  of  the  million  and  a  half 
troops  which  had  gone  over  from  here  in  a  few 
months,  Great  Britain  brought  over  two  thirds 
and  escorted  half. 


202  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"I  would  like  American  papers  to  pay  particular 
attention  to  the  fact  that  there  are  about  5000 
anti-submarine  craft  in  the  ocean  to-day,  cutting 
out  mines,  escorting  troop  ships,  and  making  it 
possible  for  us  to  go  ahead  and  win  this  war. 
They  can  do  this  because  the  British  Grand  Fleet 
is  so  powerful  that  the  German  High  Seas  Fleet 
has  to  stay  at  home.  The  British  Grand  Fleet  is 
the  foundation  stone  of  the  cause  of  the  whole  of 
the  Allies.77 

Thus   Admiral   Sims. 

That  is  part  of  what  England  did  in  the  war. 

NOTE.  —  The  author  expresses  thanks  and  acknowledg 
ment  to  Pearson's  Magazine  for  permission  to  use  the  passages 
quoted  from  the  articles  by  Admiral  Sims. 


CHAPTER  XV 
RUDE  BRITANNIA,   CRUDE   COLUMBIA 


CHAPTER  XV 

RUDE   BRITANNIA,    CRUDE   COLUMBIA 

IT  may  have  been  ten  years  ago,  it  may  have 
been  fifteen  —  and  just  how  long  it  was  before 
the  war  makes  no  matter  —  that  I  received  an 
invitation  to  join  a  society  for  the  promotion  of 
more  friendly  relations  between  the  United  States 
and  England. 

"No,  indeed,"  I  said  to  myself. 

Even  as  I  read  the  note,  hostility  rose  in  me. 
Refusal  sprang  to  my  lips  before  my  reason  had 
acted  at  all.  I  remembered  George  III.  I 
remembered  the  Civil  War.  The  ancient  grudge, 
the  anti-English  complex,  had  been  instantly  set 
fermenting  in  me.  Nothing  could  better  dis 
close  its  lurking  persistence  than  my  virtually 
automatic  exclamation,  "No,  indeed!"  I  knew 
something  about  England's  friendly  acts,  about 
Venezuela,  and  Manila  Bay,  and  Edmund  Burke, 
and  John  Bright,  and  the  Queen,  and  the  Lan 
cashire  cotton  spinners.  And  more  than  this 

205 


206  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

historic  knowledge,  I  knew  living  English  people, 
men  and  women,  among  whom  I  counted  dear 
and  even  beloved  friends.  I  knew  also,  just  as 
well  as  Admiral  Mahan  knew,  and  other  Americans 
by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  have  known  and 
know  at  this  moment,  that  all  the  best  we  have 
and  are  —  law,  ethics,  love  of  liberty  —  all  of  it 
came  from  England,  grew  in  England  first,  ripened 
from  the  seed  of  which  we  are  merely  one  great 
harvest,  planted  here  by  England.  And  yet  I 
instantly  exclaimed,  "No,  indeed!" 

Well,  having  been  inflicted  with  the  anti- 
English  complex  myself,  I  understand  it  all  the 
better  in  others,  and  am  begging  them  to  counter 
act  it  as  I  have  done.  You  will  recollect  that  I 
said  at  the  outset  of  these  observations  that,  as  I 
saw  it,  our  prejudice  was  founded  upon  three 
causes  fairly  separate,  although  they  often  melted 
together.  With  two  of  these  causes  I  have  now 
dealt  —  the  school  histories,  and  certain  acts  and 
policies  of  England's  throughout  our  relations 
with  her.  The  third  cause,  I  said,  was  certain 
traits  of  the  English  and  ourselves  which  have 
produced  personal  friction.  An  American  does 
or  says  something  which  angers  an  Englishman, 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     207 

who  thereupon  goes  about  thinking  and  saying, 
" Those  insufferable  Yankees!"  An  Englishman 
does  or  says  something  which  angers  an  American, 
who  thereupon  goes  about  thinking  and  saying, 
"  To  Hell  with  England ! "  Each  makes  the  well- 
nigh  universal  —  but  none  the  less  perfectly 
ridiculous  —  blunder  of  damning  a  whole  people 
because  one  of  them  has  rubbed  him  the  wrong 
way.  Nothing  could  show  up  more  forcibly  and 
vividly  this  human  weakness  for  generalizing  from 
insufficient  data,  than  the  incident  in  London 
streets  which  I  promised  to  tell  you  in  full  when 
we  should  reach  the  time  for  it.  The  time  is  now. 
In  a  hospital  at  no  great  distance  from  San 
Francisco,  a  wounded  American  soldier  said  to 
one  who  sat  beside  him,  that  never  would  he  go 
to  Europe  to  fight  anybody  again  —  except  the 
English.  Them  he  would  like  to  fight ;  and  to 
the  astonished  visitor  he  told  his  reason.  He,  it 
appeared,  was  one  of  our  Americans  who  marched 
through  London  streets  on  that  day  when  the 
eyes  of  London  looked  for  the  first  time  upon  the 
Yankees  at  last  arrived  to  bear  a  hand  to  England 
and  her  Allies.  From  the  mob  came  a  certain 
taunt : 


208  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"  You  silly  ass." 

It  was,  as  you  will  observe,  an  unflattering 
interpretation  of  our  national  initials,  U.  S.  A. 
Of  course  it  was  enough  to  make  a  proper  American 
doughboy  entirely  "hot  under  the  collar."  To 
this  reading  of  our  national  initials  our  national 
readiness  retorted  in  kind  at  an  early  date: 
A.  E.  F.  meant  After  England  Failed.  But  why, 
months  and  months  afterwards,  when  everything 
was  over,  did  that  foolish  doughboy  in  the 
hospital  hug  this  lone  thing  to  his  memory?  It 
was  the  act  of  an  unthinking  few.  Didn't  he 
notice  what  the  rest  of  London  was  doing  that 
day?  Didn't  he  remember  that  she  flew  the 
Union  Jack  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes  together 
from  every  symbolic  pinnacle  of  creed  and  govern 
ment  that  rose  above  her  continent  of  streets  and 
dwellings  to  the  sky?  Couldn't  he  feel  that  Eng 
land,  his  old  enemy  and  old  mother,  bowed 
and  stricken  and  struggling,  was  opening  her  arms 
to  him  wide  ?  She's  a  person  who  hides  her  tears 
even  from  herself ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that,  with 
a  drop  of  imagination  and  half  a  drop  of  thought, 
he  might  have  discovered  a  year  and  a  half  after 
a  few  street  roughs  had  insulted  him,  that  they 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     209 

were  not  all  England.  With  two  drops  of  thought 
it  might  even  have  ultimately  struck  him  that 
here  we  came,  late,  very  late,  indeed,  only  just  in 
time,  from  a  country  untouched,  unafflicted,  un- 
bombed,  safe,  because  of  England's  ships,  to  tired, 
broken,  bleeding  England ;  and  that  the  sight 
of  us,  so  jaunty,  so  fresh,  so  innocent  of  suffer 
ing  and  bereavement,  should  have  been  for  a 
thoughtless  moment  galling  to  unthinking  brains  ? 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  if  such  considerations 
as  these  were  laid  before  any  American  soldier 
who  still  smarted  under  that  taunt  in  London 
streets,  his  good  American  sense,  which  is  our 
best  possession,  would  grasp  and  accept  the  thing 
in  its  true  proportions.  He  wouldn't  want  to 
blot  an  Empire  out  because  a  handful  of  muckers 
called  him  names.  Of  this  I  am  perfectly  sure, 
because  in  Paris  streets  it  was  my  happy  lot  four 
months  after  the  Armistice  to  talk  with  many 
American  soldiers,  among  whom  some,  felt  sore 
about  the  French.  Not  one  of  these  but  saw 
with  his  good  American  sense,  directly  I  pointed 
certain  facts  out  to  him,  that  his  hostile  general 
ization  had  been  unjust.  But,  to  quote  the  oft- 
quoted  Mr.  Kipling,  that  is  another  story. 


210  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

An  American  regiment  just  arrived  in  France 
was  encamped  for  purposes  of  training  and 
experience  next  a  British  regiment  come  back 
from  the  front  to  rest.  The  streets  of  the  two 
camps  were  adjacent,  and  the  Tommies  walked 
out  to  watch  the  Yankees  pegging  down  their 
tents. 

"Aw,"  they  said,  "wot  a  shyme  you've  brought 
nobody  along  to  tuck  you  in." 

They  made  other  similar  remarks ;  commented 
unfavorably  upon  the  alignment;  "You  were  a 
bit  late  in  coming,"  they  said.  Of  course  our 
boys  had  answers,  and  to  these  the  Tommies  had 
further  answers,  and  this  encounter  of  wits  very 
naturally  led  to  a  result  which  could  not  possibly 
have  been  happier.  I  don't  know  what  the  Tom 
mies  expected  the  Yankees  to  do.  I  suppose  they 
were  as  ignorant  of  our  nature  as  we  of  theirs, 
and  that  they  entertained  preconceived  notions. 
They  suddenly  found  that  we  were,  once  again 
to  quote  Mr.  Kipling,  "bachelors  in  barricks  most 
remarkable  like  "  themselves.  An  American  first 
sergeant  hit  a  British  first  sergeant.  Instantly 
a  thousand  men  were  milling.  For  thirty  minutes 
they  kept  at  it.  Warriors  reeled  together  and 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     211 

fell  and  rose  and  got  it  in  the  neck  and  the  jaw 
and  the  eye  and  the  nose  —  and  all  the  while  the 
British  and  American  officers,  splendidly  discreet, 
saw  none  of  it.  British  soldiers  were  carried 
back  to  their  streets,  still  fighting,  bunged  Yankees 
staggered  everywhere  —  but  not  an  officer  saw 
any  of  it.  Black  eyes  the  next  day,  and  other 
tokens,  very  plainly  showed  who  had  been  at  this 
party.  Thereafter  a  much  better  feeling  pre 
vailed  between  Tommies  and  Yanks. 

A  more  peaceful  contact  produced  excellent 
consequences  at  an  encampment  of  Americans 
in  England.  The  Americans  had  brought  over 
an  idea,  apparently,  that  the  English  were  "easy." 
They  tried  it  on  in  sundry  ways,  but  ended  by 
the  discovery  that,  while  engaged  upon  this 
enterprise,  they  had  been  in  sundry  ways  quite 
completely  "done"  themselves.  This  gave  them 
a  respect  for  their  English  cousins  which  they  had 
never  felt  before. 

Here  is  another  tale,  similar  in  moral.  This 
occurred  at  Brest,  in  France.  In  the  Y  hut  sat 
an  English  lady,  one  of  the  hostesses.  To  her 
came  a  young  American  marine  with  whom  she 
already  had  some  acquaintance.  This  led  him  to 


212  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

ask  for  her  advice.  He  said  to  her  that  as  his 
permission  was  of  only  seventy-two  hours,  he 
wanted  to  be  as  economical  of  his  time  as  he 
could  and  see  everything  best  worth  while  for 
him  to  see  during  his  leave.  Would  she,  there 
fore,  tell  him  what  things  in  Paris  were  the  most 
interesting  and  in  what  order  he  had  best  take 
them  ?  She  replied  with  another  suggestion ; 
why  not,  she  said,  ask  for  permission  for  England  ? 
This  would  give  him  two  weeks  instead  of  seventy- 
two  hours.  At  this  he  burst  out  violently  that 
he  would  not  set  foot  in  England ;  that  he  never 
wanted  to  have  anything  to  do  with  England  or 
with  the  English:  "Why,  I  am  a  marine!"  he 
exclaimed,  "and  we  marines  would  sooner  knock 
down  any  English  sailor  than  speak  to  him." 

The  English  lady,  naturally,  did  not  then  tell 
him  her  nationality.  She  now  realized  that  he 
had  supposed  her  to  be  American,  because  she 
had  frequently  been  in  America  and  had  talked 
to  him  as  no  stranger  to  the  country  could.  She, 
of  course,  did  not  urge  his  going  to  England ;  she 
advised  him  what  to  see  in  France.  He  took  his 
leave  of  seventy-two  hours  and  when  he  returned 
was  very  grateful  for  the  advice  she  had  given  him. 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     213 

She  saw  him  often  after  this,  and  he  grew  to 
rely  very  much  upon  her  friendly  counsel. 
Finally,  when  the  time  came  for  her  to  go  away 
from  Brest,  she  told  him  that  she  was  English. 
And  then  she  said  something  like  this  to  him : 

"Now,  you  told  me  you  had  never  been  in 
England  and  had  never  known  an  English  person 
in  your  life,  and  yet  you  had  all  these  ideas 
against  us  because  somebody  had  taught  you 
wrong.  It  is  not  at  all  your  fault.  You  are  only 
nineteen  years  old  and  you  cannot  read  about  us, 
because  you  have  no  chance ;  but  at  least  you  do 
know  one  English  person  now,  and  that  English 
person  begs  you,  when  you  do  have  a  chance  to 
read  and  inform  yourself  of  the  truth,  to  find  out 
what  England  really  has  been,  and  what  she  has 
really  done  in  this  war." 

The  end  of  the  story  is  that  the  boy,  who  had 
become  devoted  to  her,  did  as  she  suggested. 
To-day  she  receives  letters  from  him  which  show 
that  nothing  is  left  of  his  anti-English  complex. 
It  is  another  instance  of  how  clearly  our  native 
American  mind,  if  only  the  facts  are  given  it, 
thinks,  judges,  and  concludes. 

It  is  for  those  of  my  countrymen  who  will 


214  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

never  have  this  chance,  never  meet  some  one  who 
can  guide  them  to  the  facts,  that  I  tell  these 
things.  Let  them  "cut  out  the  dope."  At  this 
very  moment  that  I  write  —  November  24, 
1919  —  the  dope  is  being  fed  freely  to  all  who  are 
ready,  whether  through  ignorance  or  through 
interested  motives,  to  swallow  it.  The  ancient 
grudge  is  being  played  up  strong  over  the  whole 
country  in  the  interest  of  Irish  independence. 

Ian  Hay  in  his  two  books  so  timely  and  so 
excellent,  Getting  Together  and  The  Oppressed 
English,  could  not  be  as  unreserved,  naturally, 
as  I  can  be  about  those  traits  in  my  own  country 
men  which  have,  in  the  past  at  any  rate,  retarded 
English  cordiality  towards  Americans.  Of  these 
I  shall  speak  as  plainly  as  I  know  how.  But 
also,  being  an  American  and  therefore  by  birth 
more  indiscreet  than  Ian  Hay,  I  shall  speak  as 
plainly  as  I  know  how  of  those  traits  in  the 
English  which  have  helped  to  keep  warm  our 
ancient  grudge.  Thus  I  may  render  both 
countries  forever  uninhabitable  to  me,  but  shall 
at  least  take  with  me  into  exile  a  character  for 
strict,  if  disastrous,  impartiality. 

I  begin  with  an  American  who  was  traveling 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     215 

in  an  English  train.  It  stopped  somewhere,  and 
out  of  the  window  he  saw  some  buildings  which 
interested  him. 

"Can  you  tell  me  what  those  are?"  he  asked 
an  Englishman,  a  stranger,  who  sat  in  the  other 
corner  of  the  compartment. 

"  Better  ask  the  guard,"  said  the  Englishman. 

Since  that  brief  dialogue,  this  American  does 
not  think  well  of  the  English. 

Now,  two  interpretations  of  the  Englishman's 
answer  are  possible.  One  is,  that  he  didn't  him 
self  know,  and  said  so  in  his  English  way.  English 
talk  is  often  very  short,  much  shorter  than  ours. 
That  is  because  they  all  understand  each  other, 
are  much  closer  knit  than  we  are.  Behind  them 
are  generations  of  " doing  it"  in  the  same  estab 
lished  way,  a  way  that  their  long  experience  of 
life  has  hammered  out  for  their  own  convenience, 
and  which  they  like.  We're  not  nearly  so  closely 
knit  together  here,  save  in  certain  spots,  especially 
the  old  spots.  In  Boston  they  understand  each 
other  with  very  few  words  said.  So  they  do  in 
Charleston.  But  these  spots  of  condensed  and 
hoarded  understanding  lie  far  apart,  are  never 
confluent,  and  also  differ  in  their  details;  while 


216  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

the  whole  of  England  is  confluent,  and  the  details 
have  been  slowly  worked  out  through-  centuries 
of  getting  on  together,  and  are  accepted  and  ob 
served  exactly  like  the  rules  of  a  game. 

In  America,  if  the  American  didn't  know,  he 
would  have  answered,  "I  don't  know.  I  think 
you'll  have  to  ask  the  conductor,"  or  at  any  rate, 
his  reply  would  have  been  longer  than  the  English 
man's.  But  I  am  not  going  to  accept  the  idea 
that  the  Englishman  didn't  know  and  said  so  in 
his  brief  usual  way.  It's  equally  possible  that 
he  did  know.  Then,  you  naturally  ask,  why  in 
the  name  of  common  civility  did  he  give  such 
an  answer  to  the  American  ? 

I  believe  that  I  can  tell  you.  He  didn't  know 
that  my  friend  was  an  American,  he  thought 
he  was  an  Englishman  who  had  broken  the  rules 
of  the  game.  We  do  have  some  rules  here  in 
America,  only  we  have  not  nearly  so  many, 
they're  much  more  stretchable,  and  it's  not  all 
of  us  who  have  learned  them.  But  nevertheless 
a  good  many  have. 

Suppose  you  were  traveling  in  a  train  here,  and 
the  man  next  you,  whose  face  you  had  never 
seen  before,  and  with  whom  you  had  not  yet  ex- 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     217 

changed  a  syllable,  said:  " What's  your  pet 
name  for  your  wife?" 

Wouldn't  your  immediate  inclination  be  to 
say,  "What  damned  business  is  that  of  yours?" 
or  words  to  that  general  effect? 

But  again,  you  most  naturally  object,  there  was 
nothing  personal  in  my  friend's  question  about 
the  buildings.  No ;  but  that  is  not  it.  At  the 
bottom,  both  questions  are  an  invasion  of  the 
same  deep-seated  thing  —  the  right  to  privacy.  In 
America,  what  with  the  newspaper  reporters 
and  this  and  that  and  the  other,  the  territory  of 
a  man's  privacy  has  been  lessened  and  lessened 
until  very  little  of  it  remains;  but  most  of  us 
still  do  draw  the  line  somewhere ;  we  may  not  all 
draw  it  at  the  same  place,  but  we  do  draw  a  line. 
The  difference,  then,  between  ourselves  and  the 
English  in  this  respect  is  simply,  that  with  them 
the  territory  of  a  man's  privacy  covers  more 
ground,  and  different  ground  as  well.  An  English 
man  doesn't  expect  strangers  to  ask  him  questions 
of  a  guide-book  sort.  For  all  such  questions  his 
English  system  provides  perfectly  definite  persons 
to  answer.  If  you  want  to  know  where  the  ticket 
office  is,  or  where  to  take  your  baggage,  or  what 


218  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

time  the  train  goes,  or  what  platform  it  starts 
from,  or  what  towns  it  stops  at,  and  what  churches 
or  other  buildings  of  interest  are  to  be  seen  in 
those  towns,  there  are  porters  and  guards  and 
Bradshaws  and  guidebooks  to  tell  you,  and  it's 
they  whom  you  are  expected  to  consult,  not  any 
fellow-traveler  who  happens  to  be  at  hand.  If 
you  ask  him,  you  break  the  rules.  Had  my 
friend  said:  "I  am  an  American.  Would  you 
mind  telling  me  what  those  buildings  are?"  all 
would  have  gone  well.  The  Englishman  would 
have  recognized  (not  fifty  years  ago,  but  cer 
tainly  to-day)  that  it  wasn't  a  question  of  rules 
between  them,  and  would  have  at  once  explained 
—  either  that  he  didn't  know,  or  that  the  build 
ings  were  such  and  such. 

Do  not,  I  beg,  suppose  for  a  moment  that  I  am 
holding  up  the  English  way  as  better  than  our 
own  —  or  worse.  I  am  not  making  comparisons ; 
I  am  trying  to  show  differences.  Very  likely  there 
are  many  points  wherein  we  think  the  English 
might  do  well  to  borrow  from  us ;  and  it  is  quite 
as  likely  that  the  English  think  we  might  here 
and  there  take  a  leaf  from  their  book  to  our 
advantage.  But  I  am  not  theorizing,  I  am  not 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     219 

seeking  to  show  that  we  manage  life  better  or 
that  they  manage  life  better ;  the  only  moral  that 
I  seek  to  draw  from  these  anecdotes  is,  that  we 
should  each  understand  and  hence  make  allowance 
for  the  other  fellow's  way.  You  will  admit,  I 
am  sure,  be  you  American  or  English,  that 
everybody  has  a  right  to  his  own  way?  The 
proverb  "When  in  Rome  you  must  do  as  Rome 
does"  covers  it,  and  would  save  trouble  if  we 
always  obeyed  it.  The  people  who  forget  it 
most  are  they  that  go  to  Rome  for  the  first  time ; 
and  I  shall  give  you  both  English  and  American 
examples  of  this  presently.  It  is  good  to  as 
certain  before  you  go  to  Rome,  if  you  can,  what 
Rome  does  do. 

Have  you  never  been  mistaken  for  a  waiter, 
or  something  of  that  sort?  Perhaps  you  will 
have  heard  the  anecdote  about  one  of  our  am 
bassadors  to  England.  All  ambassadors,  save 
ours,  wear  on  formal  occasions  a  distinguishing 
uniform,  just  as  our  army  and  navy  officers  do ; 
it  is  convenient,  practical,  and  saves  trouble. 
But  we  have  declared  it  menial,  or  despotic,  or 
un-American,  or  something  equally  silly,  and 
hence  our  ambassadors  must  wear  evening  dress 


220  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

resembling  closely  the  attire  of  those  who  are 
handing  the  supper  or  answering  the  door-bell. 
An  Englishman  saw  Mr.  Choate  at  some  diplo 
matic  function,  standing  about  in  this  evening 
costume,  and  said : 

"  Call  me  a  cab." 

"You  are  a  cab,"  said  Mr.  Choate,  obediently. 

Thus  did  he  make  known  to  the  Englishman 
that  he  was  not  a  waiter.  Similarly  in  crowded 
hotel  dining-rooms  or  crowded  railroad  stations 
have  agitated  ladies  clutched  my  arm  and 
said : 

"I  want  a  table  for  three/'  or  "When  does  the 
train  go  to  Poughkeepsie  ?  " 

Just  as  we  in  America  have  regular  people  to 
attend  to  these  things,  so  do  they  in  England ; 
and  as  the  English  respect  each  other's  right  to 
privacy  very  much  more  than  we  do,  they  resent 
invasions  of  it  very  much  more  than  we  do. 
But,  let  me  say  again,  they  are  likely  to  mind  it 
only  in  somebody  they  think  knows  the  rules. 
With  those  who  don't  know  them  it  is  different. 
I  say  this  with  all  the  more  certainty  because  of  a 
fairly  recent  afternoon  spent  in  an  English  garden 
with  English  friends.  The  question  of  pro- 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     221 

nunciation  came  up.  Now  you  will  readily  see 
that  with  them  and  their  compactness,  their 
great  public  schools,  their  two  great  Universities, 
and  their  great  London,  the  one  eternal  focus  of 
them  all,  both  the  chance  of  diversity  in  social 
customs  and  the  tolerance  of  it  must  be  far  less 
than  in  our  huge  unfocused  country.  With  us, 
Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  San 
Francisco,  is  each  a  centre.  Here  you  can  pro 
nounce  the  word  calm,  for  example,  in  one  way 
or  another,  and  it  merely  indicates  where  you 
come  from.  Departure  in  England  from  certain 
established  pronunciations  has  another  effect. 

"Of  course,"  said  one  of  my  friends,  "one 
knows  where  to  place  anybody  who  says  'girl'" 
(pronouncing  it  as  it  is  spelled). 

"That's  frightful,"  said  I,  "because  I  say 
'girl'." 

"Oh,  but  you  are  an  American.  It  doesn't 
apply." 

But  had  I  been  English,  it  would  have  been 
something  like  coming  to  dinner  without  your 
collar. 

That  is  why  I  think  that,  had  my  friend  in  the 
train  begun  his  question  about  the  buildings  by 


222  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

saying  that  he  was  an  American,  the  answer 
would  have  been  different.  Not  all  the  English 
yet,  but  many  more  than  there  were  fifty  or  even 
twenty  years  ago,  have  ceased  to  apply  their 
rules  to  us. 

About  1874  a  friend  of  mine  from  New  York 
was  taken  to  a  London  Club .  Into  the  room  where 
he  was  came  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  took  out 
a  cigar,  felt  for  and  found  no  matches,  looked 
about,  and  there  was  a  silence.  My  friend  there 
upon  produced  matches,  struck  one,  and  offered 
it  to  the  Prince,  who  bowed,  thanked  him,  lighted 
his  cigar,  and  presently  went  away. 

Then  an  Englishman  observed  to  my  friend : 
"It's  not  the  thing  for  a  commoner  to  offer  a 
light  to  the  Prince." 

"I'm  not  a  commoner,  I'm  an  American,"  said 
my  friend  with  perfect  good  nature. 

Whatever  their  rule  may  be  to-day  about  the 
Prince  and  matches,  as  to  us  they  have  come  to 
accept  my  friend's  pertinent  distinction :  they 
don't  expect  us  to  keep  or  even  to  know  their 
own  set  of  rules. 

Indeed,  they  surpass  us  in  this,  they  make  more 
allowances  for  us  than  we  for  them.  They  don't 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     223 

criticize  Americans  for  not  being  English.  Amer 
icans  still  constantly  do  criticize  the  English  for 
not  being  Americans.  Now,  the  measure  in 
which  you  don't  allow  for  the  customs  of  another 
country  is  the  measure  of  your  own  provincialism. 
I  have  heard  some  of  our  own  soldiers  express 
dislike  of  the  English  because  of  their  coldness. 
The  English  are  not  cold ;  they  are  silent  upon 
certain  matters.  But  it  is  all  there.  Do  you 
remember  that  sailor  at  Zeebrugge  carrying  the 
unconscious  body  of  a  comrade  to  safety,  not 
sure  yet  if  he  were  alive  or  dead,  and  stroking 
that  comrade's  head  as  he  went,  saying  over  and 
over,  "Did  you  think  I  would  leave  yer?"  We 
are  more  demonstrative,  we  spell  things  out  which 
it  is  the  way  of  the  English  to  leave  between  the 
lines.  But  it  is  all  there!  Behind  that  uncon- 
ciliating  wall  of  shyness  and  reserve,  beats  and 
hides  the  warm,  loyal  British  heart,  the  most 
constant  heart  in  the  world. 

"  It  isn't  done." 

That  phrase  applies  to  many  things  in  England 
besides  offering  a  light  to  the  Prince,  or  asking  a 
fellow  traveler  what  those  buildings  are;  and  I 
think  that  the  Englishman's  notion  of  his  right 


224  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

to  privacy  lies  at  the  bottom  of  quite  a  number  of 
these  things.  You  may  lay  some  of  them  to 
snobbishness,  to  caste,  to  shyness,  they  may  have 
various  secondary  origins;  but  I  prefer  to  cover 
them  all  with  the  broader  term,  the  right  to 
privacy,  because  it  seems  philosophically  to 
account  for  them  and  explain  them. 

In  May,  1915,  an  Oxford  professor  was  in  New 
York.  A  few  years  before  this  I  had  read  a  book 
of  his  which  had  delighted  me.  I  met  him  at 
lunch,  I  had  not  known  him  before.  Even  as  we 
shook  hands,  I  blurted  out  to  him  my  admiration 
for  his  book. 

"Oh." 

That  was  the  whole  of  his  reply.  It  made  me 
laugh  at  myself,  for  I  should  have  known  better. 
I  had  often  been  in  England  and  could  have  told 
anybody  that  you  mustn't  too  abruptly  or 
obviously  refer  to  what  the  other  fellow  does,  still 
less  to  what  you  do  yourself.  "It  isn't  done." 
It's  a  sort  of  indecent  exposure.  It's  one  of  the 
invasions  of  the  right  to  privacy. 

In  America,  not  everywhere  but  in  many 
places,  a  man  upon  entering  a  club  and  seeing 
a  friend  across  the  room,  will  not  hesitate  to 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     225 

call  out  to  him,  "Hullo,  Jack!"  or  " Hullo, 
George!"  or  whatever.  In  England  "it  isn't 
done."  The  greeting  would  be  conveyed  by  a 
short  nod  or  a  glance.  To  call  out  a  man's 
name  across  a  room  full  of  people,  some  of  whom 
may  be  total  strangers,  invades  his  privacy  and 
theirs.  Have  you  noticed  how,  in  our  Pullman 
parlor  cars,  a  party  sitting  together,  generally 
young  women,  will  shriek  their  conversation  in 
a  voice  that  bores  like  a  gimlet  through  the 
whole  place?  That  is  an  invasion  of  privacy. 
In  England  "it  isn't  done."  We  shouldn't  stand 
it  in  a  theatre,  but  in  parlor  cars  we  do  stand  it. 
It  is  a  good  instance  to  show  that  the  English 
man's  right  to  privacy  is  larger  than  ours,  and 
thus  that  his  liberty  is  larger  than  ours. 

Before  leaving  this  point,  which  to  my  thinking 
is  the  cause  of  many  frictions  and  misunderstand 
ings  between  ourselves  and  the  English,  I  mustn't 
omit  to  give  instances  of  divergence,  where  an 
Englishman  will  speak  of  matters  upon  which 
we  are  silent,  and  is  silent  upon  subjects  of  which 
we  will  speak. 

You  may  present  a  letter  of  introduction  to  an 
Englishman,  and  he  wishes  to  be  civil,  to  help 


226  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

you  to  have  a  good  time.  It  is  quite  possible 
he  may  say  something  like  this  : 

"I  think  you  had  better  know  my  sister  Sophy. 
You  mayn't  like  her.  But  her  dinners  are  rather 
amusing.  Of  course  the  food's  ghastly  because 
she's  the  stingiest  woman  in  London." 

On  the  other  hand,  many  Americans  (though 
less  willing  than  the  French)  are  willing  to  dis 
cuss  creed,  immortality,  faith.  There  is  noth 
ing  from  which  the  Englishman  more  peremptorily 
recoils,  although  he  hates  well  nigh  as  deeply  all 
abstract  discussion,  or  to  be  clever,  or  to  have 
you  be  clever.  An  American  friend  of  mine  had 
grown  tired  of  an  Englishman  who  had  been 
finding  fault  with  one  American  thing  after 
another.  So  he  suddenly  said : 

"Will  you  tell  me  why  you  English  when  you 
enter  your  pews  on  Sunday  always  immediately 
smell  your  hats?" 

The  Englishman  stiffened.  "I  refuse  to  dis 
cuss  religious  subjects  with  you/'  he  said. 

To  be  ponderous  over  this  anecdote  grieves  me 
—  but  you  may  not  know  that  orthodox  English 
men  usually  don't  kneel,  as  we  do,  after  reaching 
their  pews;  they  stand  for  a  moment,  covering 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     227 

their  faces  with  their  well-brushed  hats :  with 
each  nation  the  observance  is  the  same,  it  is  in 
the  manner  of  the  observing  that  we  differ. 

Much  is  said  about  our  "  common  language," 
and  its  being  a  reason  for  our  understanding 
each  other.  Yes ;  but  it  is  also  almost  as  much 
a  cause  for  our  misunderstanding  each  other.  It 
is  both  a  help  and  a  trap.  If  we  Americans  spoke 
something  so  wholly  different  from  English  as 
French  is,  comparisons  couldn't  be  made ;  and 
somebody  has  remarked  that  comparisons  are 
odious. 

"Why  do  you  call  your  luggage  baggage?" 
says  the  Englishman  —  or  used  to  say. 

"Why  do  you  call  your  baggage  luggage?" 
says  the  American  —  or  used  to  say. 

"Why  don't  you  say  treacle?"  inquires  the 
Englishman. 

"Because  we  call  it  molasses,"  answers  the 
American. 

"How  absurd  to  speak  of  a  car  when  you  mean 
a  carriage!"  exclaims  the  Englishman. 

"We  don't  mean  a  carriage,  we  mean  a  car," 
retorts  the  American. 

You,  my  reader,  may  have  heard  (or  perhaps 


228  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

even  held)  foolish  conversations  like  that ;  and 
you  will  readily  perceive  that  if  we  didn't  say 
"car"  when  we  spoke  of  the  vehicle  you  get 
into  when  you  board  a  train,  but  called  it  a 
voiture,  or  something  else  quite  "foreign,"  the 
Englishman  would  not  feel  that  we  had  taken  a 
sort  of  liberty  with  his  mother-tongue.  A  deep 
point  lies  here :  for  most  English  the  world  is 
divided  into  three  peoples,  English,  foreigners, 
and  Americans;  and  for  most  of  us  likewise  it 
is  divided  into  Americans,  foreigners,  and  Eng 
lish.  Now  a  "foreigner"  can  call  molasses  what 
ever  he  pleases ;  we  do  not  feel  that  he  has  taken 
any  liberty  with  our  mother-tongue;  his  tongue 
has  a  different  mother ;  he  can't  help  that ;  he's 
not  to  be  criticized  for  that.  But  we  and  the 
English  speak  a  tongue  that  has  the  same  mother. 
This  identity  in  pedigree  has  led  and  still  leads 
to  countless  family  discords.  I've  not  a  doubt 
that  divergences  in  vocabulary  and  in  accent 
were  the  fount  and  origin  of  some  swollen  noses, 
some  battered  eyes,  when  our  Yankees  mixed 
with  the  Tommies.  Each  would  be  certain  to 
think  that  the  other  couldn't  "talk  straight" 
and  each  would  be  certain  to  say  so.  I  shall 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     229 

not  here  spin  out  a  list  of  different  names  for  the 
same  things  now  current  in  English  and  Amer 
ican  usage :  molasses  and  treacle  will  suffice  for 
an  example;  you  will  be  able  easily  to  think  of 
others,  and  there  are  many  such  that  occur  in 
everyday  speech.  Almost  more  tricky  are  those 
words  which  both  peoples  use  alike,  but  with 
different  meanings.  I  shall  spin  no  list  of  these 
either;  one  example  there  is  which  I  cannot 
name,  of  two  words  constantly  used  in  both 
countries,  each  word  quite  proper  in  one  country, 
while  in  the  other  it  is  more  than  improper. 
Thirty  years  ago  I  explained  this  one  evening 
to  a  young  Englishman  who  was  here  for  a  while. 
Two  or  three  days  later,  he  thanked  me  fervently 
for  the  warning :  it  had  saved  him,  during  a 
game  of  tennis,  from  a  frightful  shock,  when  his 
partner,  a  charming  girl,  meaning  to  tell  him  to 
cheer  up,  had  used  the  word  that  is  so  harmless 
with  us  and  in  England  so  far  beyond  the  pale 
of  polite  society. 

Quite  as  much  as  words,  accent  also  leads  to 
dissension.  I  have  heard  many  an  American 
speak  of  the  English  accent  as  " affected";  and 
our  accent  displeases  the  English.  Now  what 


230  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

Englishman,  or  what  American,  ever  criticizes 
a  Frenchman  for  not  pronouncing  our  language 
as  we  do  ?  His  tongue  has  a  different  mother ! 

I  know  not  how  in  the  course  of  the  years  all 
these  divergences  should  have  come  about,  and 
none  of  us  need  care.  There  they  are.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  both  England  and  America  are 
mottled  with  varying  accents  literate  and  il 
literate;  equally  true  it  is  that  each  nation 
has  its  notion  of  the  other's  way  of  speaking  - 
we're  known  by  our  shrill  nasal  twang,  they  by 
their  broad  vowels  and  hesitation;  and  quite  as 
true  is  it  that  not  all  Americans  and  not  all  English 
do  in  their  enunciation  conform  to  these  types. 

One  May  afternoon  in  1919  I  stopped  at  Salis 
bury  to  see  that  beautiful  cathedral  and  its 
serene  and  gracious  close.  "  Star-scattered  on 
the  grass,"  and  beneath  the  noble  trees,  lay 
New  Zealand  soldiers,  solitary  or  in  little  groups, 
gazing,  drowsing,  talking  at  ease.  Later,  at  the 
inn  I  was  shown  to  a  small  table,  where  sat  al 
ready  a  young  Englishman  in  evening  dress,  at 
his  dinner.  As  I  sat  down  opposite  him,  I  bowed, 
and  he  returned  it.  Presently  we  were  talking. 
When  I  said  that  I  was  stopping  expressly  to  see 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     231 

the  cathedral,  and  how  like  a  trance  it  was  to  find 
a  scene  so  utterly  English  full  of  New  Zealanders 
lying  all  about,  he  looked  puzzled.  It  was  at 
this,  or  immediately  after  this,  that  I  explained 
to  him  my  nationality. 

"I  shouldn't  have  known  it,"  he  remarked, 
after  an  instant's  pause. 

I  pressed  him  for  his  reason,  which  he  gave; 
somewhat  reluctantly,  I  think,  but  with  ex 
cellent  good-will.  Of  course  it  was  the  same 
old  mother-tongue! 

"You  mean,"  I  said,  "that  I  haven't  happened 
to  say  'I  guess,'  and  that  I  don't,  perhaps,  talk 
through  my  nose?  But  we  don't  all  do  that. 
We  do  all  sorts  of  things." 

He  stuck  to  it.     "You  talk  like  us." 

"Well,  I'm  sure  I  don't  mean  to  talk  like 
anybody!"  I  sighed. 

This  diverted  him,  and  brought  us  closer. 

"And  see  here,"  I  continued,  "I  knew  you 
were  English,  although  you've  not  dropped  a 
single  h." 

"Oh,  but,"  he  said,  "dropping  h's  — that's  - 
that's  not—" 

"I  know  it  isn't,"  I  said.     "Neither  is  talking 


232  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

through  your  nose.  And  we  don't  all  say  'Amur- 
rican." 

But  he  stuck  to  it.  "All  the  same  there  is  an 
American  voice.  The  train  yesterday  was  full 
of  it.  Officers.  Unmistakable."  And  he  shook 
his  head. 

After  this  we  got  on  better  than  ever;  and  as 
he  went  his  way,  he  gave  me  some  advice  about 
the  hotel.  I  should  do  well  to  avoid  the  reading- 
room.  The  hotel  went  in  rather  too  much  for 
being  old-fashioned.  Ran  it  into  the  ground. 
Tiresome.  Good-night. 

Presently  I  shall  disclose  more  plainly  to  you 
the  moral  of  my  Salisbury  anecdote. 

Is  it  their  discretion,  do  you  think,  that  closes 
the  lips  of  the  French  when  they  visit  our  shores  ? 
Not  from  the  French  do  you  hear  prompt  as 
persions  as  to  our  differences  from  them.  They 
observe  that  proverb  about  being  in  Rome : 
they  may  not  be  able  to  do  as  Rome  does,  but 
they  do  not  inquire  why  Rome  isn't  like  Paris. 
If  you  ask  them  how  they  like  our  hotels  or  our 
trains,  they  may  possibly  reply  that  they  prefer 
their  own,  but  they  will  hardly  volunteer  this 
opinion.  But  the  American  in  England  and  the 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     233 

Englishman  in  America  go  about  volunteering 
opinions.  Are  the  French  more  discreet?  I 
believe  that  they  are;  but  I  wonder  if  there  is 
not  also  something  else  at  the  bottom  of  it.  You 
and  I  will  say  things  about  our  cousins  to  our 
aunt.  Our  aunt  would  not  allow  outsiders  to 
say  those  things.  Is  it  this,  the-members-of- 
the-family  principle,  which  makes  us  less  discreet 
than  the  French?  Is  it  this,  too,  which  leads  us 
by  a  seeming  paradox  to  resent  criticism  more 
when  it  comes  from  England?  I  know  not  how 
it  may  be  with  you;  but  with  me,  when  I  pick 
up  the  paper  and  read  that  the  Germans  are 
calling  us  pig-dogs  again,  I  am  merely  amused. 
When  I  read  French  or  Italian  abuse  of  us,  I 
am  sorry,  to  be  sure ;  but  when  some  English 
paper  jumps  on  us,  I  hate  it,  even  when  I  know 
that  what  it  says  isn't  true.  So  here,  if  I  am  right 
in  my  members-of-the-family  hypothesis,  you  have 
the  English  and  ourselves  feeling  free  to  be  dis 
agreeable  to  each  other  because  we  are  relations, 
and  yet  feeling  especially  resentful  because  it's  a 
relation  who  is  being  disagreeable.  I  merely 
put  the  point  to  you,  I  lay  no  dogma  down  con 
cerning  members  of  the  family;  but  I  am  per- 


234  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

fectly  sure  that  discretion  is  a  quality  more 
common  to  the  French  than  to  ourselves  or  our 
relations :  I  mean  something  a  little  more  than 
discretion,  I  mean  esprit  de  conduite,  for  which 
it  is  hard  to  find  a  translation. 

Upon  my  first  two  points,  the  right  to  privacy 
and  the  mother-tongue,  I  have  lingered  long, 
feeling  these  to  be  not  only  of  prime  importance 
and  wide  application,  but  also  to  be  quite  beyond 
my  power  to  make  lucid  in  short  compass.  I 
trust  that  they  have  been  made  lucid.  I  must 
now  get  on  to  further  anecdotes,  illustrating 
other  and  less  subtle  causes  of  misunderstanding ; 
and  I  feel  somewhat  like  the  author  of  Don 
Juan  when  he  exclaims  that  he  almost  wishes 
he  had  ne'er  begun  that  very  remarkable  poem. 
I  renounce  all  pretense  to  the  French  virtue  of 
discretion. 

Evening  dress  has  been  the  source  of  many 
irritations.  Englishmen  did  not  appear  to  think 
that  they  need  wear  it  at  American  dinner  parties. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  this  at  one  time.  During 
that  period  an  Englishman,  who  had  brought 
letters  to  a  gentleman  in  Boston  and  in  conse 
quence  had  been  asked  to  dinner,  entered  the 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     235 

house  of  his  host  in  a  tweed  suit.  His  host,  in 
evening  dress  of  course,  met  him  in  the  hall. 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  the  Bostonian,  "that  you 
haven't  your  dress  suit  with  you.  The  man 
will  take  you  upstairs  and  one  of  mine  will  fit 
you  well  enough.  We'll  wait." 

In  England,  a  cricketer  from  Philadelphia, 
after  the  match  at  Lord's,  had  been  invited  to 
dine  at  a  great  house  with  the  rest  of  his 
eleven.  They  were  to  go  there  on  a  coach. 
The  American  discovered  after  arrival  that  he 
alone  of  the  eleven  had  not  brought  a  dress  suit 
with  him.  He  asked  his  host  what  he  was  to 
do. 

"I  advise  you  to  go  home,"  said  the  host. 

The  moral  here  is  not  that  all  hosts  in  England 
would  have  treated  a  guest  so,  or  that  all  Amer 
ican  hosts  would  have  met  the  situation  so  well 
as  that  Boston  gentleman  :  but  too  many  English 
used  to  be  socially  brutal  —  quite  as  much  so 
to  each  other  as  to  us,  or  any  one.  One  should 
bear  that  in  mind.  I  know  of  nothing  more 
English  in  its  way  than  what  Eton  answered  to 
Beaumont  (I  think)  when  Beaumont  sent  a  chal 
lenge  to  play  cricket : 


236  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"  Harrow  we  know,  and  Rugby  we  have  heard 
of.  But  who  are  you  ?" 

That  sort  of  thing  belongs  rather  to  the  Palm- 
erston  days  than  to  these;  belongs  to  days 
that  were  nearer  in  spirit  to  the  Waterloo  of 
1815,  which  a  haughty  England  won,  than  to  the 
Waterloo  of  1914-18,  which  a  humbler  England 
so  nearly  lost. 

Turn  we  next  the  other  way  for  a  look  at  our 
selves.  An  American  lady  who  had  brought  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  an  Englishman  in  Lon 
don  was  in  consequence  asked  to  lunch.  He 
naturally  and  hospitably  gathered  to  meet  her 
various  distinguished  guests.  Afterwards  she 
wrote  him  that  she  wished  him  to  invite  her 
to  lunch  again,  as  she  had  matters  of  importance 
to  tell  him.  Why,  then,  didn't  she  ask  him  to 
lunch  with  her?  Can  you  see?  I  think  I  do. 

An  American  lady  was  at  a  house  party  in 
Scotland  at  which  she  met  a  gentleman  of  old 
and  famous  Scotch  blood.  He  was  wearing  the 
kilt  of  his  clan.  While  she  talked  with  him  she 
stared,  and  finally  burst  out  laughing.  "I  de 
clare,"  she  said,  "  that's  positively  the  most 
ridiculous  thing  I  ever  saw  a  man  dressed  in." 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     237 

At  the  Savoy  hotel  in  August,  1914,  when 
England  declared  war  upon  Germany,  many 
American  women  made  scenes  of  confusion  and 
vociferation.  About  England  and  the  blast  of 
Fate  which  had  struck  her  they  had  nothing  to 
say,  but  crowded  and  wailed  of  their  own  dis 
comforts,  meals,  rooms,  every  paltry  personal 
inconvenience  to  which  they  were  subjected,  or 
feared  that  they  were  going  to  be  subjected. 
Under  the  unprecedented  stress  this  was,  per 
haps,  not  unnatural ;  but  it  would  have  seemed 
less  displeasing  had  they  also  occasionally  showed 
concern  for  England's  plight  and  peril. 

An  American,  this  time  a  man  (our  crudities 
are  not  limited  to  the  sex)  stood  up  in  a  theatre, 
disputing  the  sixpence  which  you  always  have 
to  pay  for  your  program  in  the  London  theatres. 
He  disputed  so  long  that  many  people  had  to 
stand  waiting  to  be  shown  their  seats. 

During  deals  at  a  game  of  bridge  on  a  Cunard 
steamer,  the  talk  had  turned  upon  a  certain 
historic  house  in  an  English  county.  The  talk 
was  friendly,  everything  had  been  friendly  each 
day. 

"Well,"  said  a  very  rich  American  to  his  Eng- 


A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

lish  partner  in  the  game,  "  those  big  estates  will 
all  be  ours  pretty  soon.  We're  going  to  buy 
them  up  and  turn  your  island  into  our  summer 
resort."  No  doubt  this  millionaire  intended  to 
be  playfully  humorous. 

At  a  table  where  several  British  and  one  Amer 
ican  —  an  officer  —  sat  during  another  ocean 
voyage  between  Liverpool  and  Halifax  in  June, 
1919,  the  officer  expressed  satisfaction  to  be 
getting  home  again.  He  had  gone  over,  he  said, 
to  "  clean  up  the  mess  the  British  had  made." 

To  a  company  of  Americans  who  had  never 
heard  it  before,  was  told  the  well-known  exploit 
of  an  American  girl  in  Europe.  In  an  ancient 
church  she  was  shown  the  tomb  of  a  soldier  who 
had  been  killed  in  battle  three  centuries  ago.  In 
his  honor  and  memory,  because  he  lost  his  life 
bravely  in  a  great  cause,  his  family  had  kept  a 
little  glimmering  lamp  alight  ever  since.  It 
hung  there,  beside  the  tomb. 

"And  that's  never  gone  out  in  all  this  time?" 
asked  the  American  girl. 

"Never,"  she  was  told. 

"Well,  it's  out  now,  anyway,"  and  she  blew 
it  out. 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     239 

All  the  Americans  who  heard  this  were  shocked 
-  all  but  one,  who  said  : 

"Well,  I  think  she  was  right." 

There  you  are !  There  you  have  us  at  our 
very  worst !  And  with  this  plump  specimen  of 
the  American  in  Europe  at  his  very  worst,  I 
turn  back  to  the  English :  only,  pray  do  not  fail 
to  give  those  other  Americans  who  were  shocked 
by  the  outrage  of  the  lamp  their  due.  How  wide 
of  the  mark  would  you  be  if  you  judged  us  all 
by  the  one  who  approved  of  that  horrible  vandal 
girl's  act !  It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that 
we  must  never  condemn  a  whole  people  for 
what  some  of  the  people  do. 

In  the  two-and-a-half  anecdotes  which  follow, 
you  must  watch  out  for  something  which  lies 
beneath  their  very  obvious  surface. 

An  American  sat  at  lunch  with  a  great  English 
lady  in  her  country-house.  Although  she  had  seen 
him  but  once  before,  she  began  a  conversation  like 
this : 

Did  the  American  know  the  van  Squibbers? 

He  did  not. 

Well,  the  van  Squibbers,  his  hostess  explained, 
were  Americans  who  lived  in  London  and  went 


240  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

everywhere.  One  certainly  did  see  them  every 
where.  They  were  almost  too  extraordinary. 

Now  the  American  knew  quite  all  about  these 
van  Squibbers.  He  knew  also  that  in  New  York, 
and  Boston,  and  Philadelphia,  and  in  many  other 
places  where  existed  a  society  with  still  some 
ragged  remnants  of  decency  and  decorum  left, 
one  would  not  meet  this  highly  star-spangled 
family  "  every  where." 

The  hostess  kept  it  up.  Did  the  American 
know  the  Butteredbuns ?  No?  Well,  one  met 
the  Butteredbuns  everywhere  too.  They  were 
rather  more  extraordinary  than  the  van  Squib 
bers.  And  then  there  were  the  Cakewalks,  and 
the  Smith-Trapezes.  Mrs.  Smith-Trapeze  wasn't 
as  extraordinary  as  her  daughter  —  the  one  that 
put  the  live  frog  in  Lord  Meldon's  soup  —  and 
of  course  neither  of  them  were  "talked  about" 
in  the  same  way  that  the  eldest  Cakewalk  girl 
was  talked  about.  Everybody  went  to  them, 
of  course,  because  one  really  never  knew  what 
one  might  miss  if  one  didn't  go. 

At  length  the  American  said  : 

"You  must  correct  me  if  I  am  wrong  in  an 
impression  I  have  received.  Vulgar  Americans 
seem  to  me  to  get  on  very  well  in  London." 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     241 

The  hostess  paused  for  a  moment,  and  then 
she  said : 

"That  is  perfectly  true." 

This  acknowledgment  was  complete,  and  per 
fectly  friendly,  and  after  that  all  went  better 
than  it  had  gone  before. 

The  half  anecdote  is  a  part  of  this  one,  and 
happened  a  few  weeks  later  at  table  —  dinner 
this  time. 

Sitting  next  to  the  same  American  was  an 
English  lady  whose  conversation  led  him  to  re 
peat  to  her  what  he  had  said  to  his  hostess  at 
lunch:  " Vulgar  Americans  seem  to  get  on  very 
well  in  London  society. " 

"They  do,"  said  the  lady,  "and  I  will  tell  you 
why.  We  English  —  I  mean  that  set  of  English 
-  are  blase*.  We  see  each  other  too  much,  we 
are  all  alike  in  our  ways,  and  we  are  awfully  tired 
of  it.  Therefore  it  refreshes  us  and  amuses  us 
to  see  something  new  and  different." 

"Then,"  said  the  American,  "you  accept  these 
hideous  people's  invitations,  and  go  to  their 
houses,  and  eat  their  food,  and  drink  their  cham 
pagne,  and  it's  just  like  going  to  see  the  monkeys 
at  the  Zoo?" 


242  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"It  is,"  returned  the  lady. 

"But,"  the  American  asked,  "isn't  that  awfully 
low  down  of  you?"  (He  smiled  as  he  said  it.) 

Immediately  the  English  lady  assented;  and 
grew  more  cordial.  When  next  day  the  party 
came  to  break  up,  she  contrived  in  the  manner 
of  her  farewell  to  make  the  American  understand 
that  because  of  their  conversation  she  bore  him 
not  ill  will  but  good  will. 

Once  more,  the  scene  of  my  anecdote  is  at 
table,  a  long  table  in  a  club,  where  men  came 
to  lunch.  All  were  Englishmen,  except  a  single 
stranger.  He  was  an  American,  who  through 
the  kindness  of  one  beloved  member  of  that 
club,  no  longer  living  now,  had  received  a  card 
to  the  club.  The  American,  upon  sitting  down 
alone  in  this  company,  felt  what  I  suppose  that 
many  of  us  feel  in  like  circumstances :  he  wished 
there  were  somebody  there  who  knew  him  and 
could  nod  to  him.  Nevertheless,  he  was  spoken 
to,  asked  questions  about  various  of  his  fellow 
countrymen,  and  made  at  home.  Presently, 
however,  an  elderly  member  who  had  been  silent 
and  whom  I  will  designate  as  being  of  the  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson  type,  said  : 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     243 

"You  seem  to  be  having  trouble  in  your  pack 
ing  houses  over  in  America?" 

We  were. 

"Very  disgraceful,  those  exposures. " 

They  were.     It  was  May,  1906. 

"Your  Government  seems  to  be  doing  some 
thing  about  it.  It's  certainly  scandalous.  Such 
abuses  should  never  have  been  possible  in  the 
first  place.  It  oughtn't  to  require  your  Govern 
ment  to  stop  it.  It  shouldn't  have  started." 

"I  fancy  the  facts  aren't  quite  so  bad  as  that 
sensational  novel  about  Chicago  makes  them 
out,"  said  the  American.  "At  least  I  have  been 
told  so." 

"It  all  sounds  characteristic  to  me,"  said  the 
Sam  Johnson.  "It's  quite  the  sort  of  thing  one 
expects  to  hear  from  the  States." 

"It  is  characteristic,"  said  the  American. 
"In  spite  of  all  the  years  that  the  sea  has  sepa 
rated  us,  we're  still  inveterately  like  you,  a  bully 
ing,  dishonest  lot  —  though  we've  had  nothing 
quite  so  bad  yet  as  your  opium  trade  with  China." 

The  Sam  Johnson  said  no  more. 

At  a  ranch  in  Wyoming  were  a  number  of 
Americans  and  one  Englishman,  a  man  of  note, 


244  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

bearing  a  celebrated  name.  He  was  telling  the 
company  what  one  could  do  in  the  way  of  amuse 
ment  in  the  evening  in  London. 

"And  if  there's  nothing  at  the  theatres  and 
everything  else  fails,  you  can  always  go  to  one 
of  the  restaurants  and  hear  the  Americans  eat." 

There  you  have  them,  my  anecdotes.  They 
are  chosen  from  many.  I  hope  and  believe  that, 
between  them  all,  they  cover  the  ground;  that, 
taken  together  as  I  want  you  to  take  them  after 
you  have  taken  them  singly,  they  make  my 
several  points  clear.  As  I  see  it,  they  reveal  the 
chief  whys  and  wherefores  of  friction  between 
English  and  Americans.  It  is  also  my  hope  that 
I  have  been  equally  disagreeable  to  everybody. 
If  I  am  to  be  banished  from  both  countries,  I 
shall  try  not  to  pass  my  exile  in  Switzerland, 
which  is  indeed  a  lovely  place,  but  just  now  too 
full  of  celebrated  Germans. 

Beyond  my  two  early  points,  the  right  to 
privacy  and  the  mother-tongue,  what  are  the 
generalizations  to  be  drawn  from  my  data?  I 
should  like  to  dodge  spelling  them  out,  I  should 
immensely  prefer  to  leave  it  here.  Some  readers 
know  it  already,  knew  it  before  I  began;  while 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     245 

for  others,  what  has  been  said  will  be  enough. 
These,  if  they  have  the  will  to  friendship  instead 
of  the  will  to  hate,  will  get  rid  of  their  anti- 
English  complex,  supposing  that  they  had  one, 
and  understand  better  in  future  what  has  not 
been  clear  to  them  before.  But  I  seem  to  feel 
that  some  readers  there  may  be  who  will  wish 
me  to  be  more  explicit. 

First,  then.  England  has  a  thousand  years 
of  greatness  to  her  credit.  Who  would  not  be 
proud  of  that?  Arrogance  is  the  seamy  side 
of  pride.  That  is  what  has  rubbed  us  Amer 
icans  the  wrong  way.  We  are  recent.  Our 
thousand  years  of  greatness  are  to  come.  Such 
is  our  passionate  belief.  Crudity  is  the  seamy 
side  of  youth.  Our  crudity  rubs  the  English 
the  wrong  way.  Compare  the  American  who 
said  we  were  going  to  buy  England  for  a  summer 
resort  with  the  Englishman  who  said  that  when 
all  other  entertainment  in  London  failed,  you 
could  always  listen  to  the  Americans  eat.  Cru 
dity,  " freshness"  on  our  side,  arrogance,  top- 
loftiness  on  theirs :  such  is  one  generalization  I 
would  have  you  disengage  from  my  anecdotes. 

Second.     The   English   are    blunter    than   we. 


246  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

They  talk  to  us  as  they  would  talk  to  themselves. 
The  way  we  take  it  reveals  that  we  are  too  often 
thin-skinned.  Recent  people  are  apt  to  be  thin- 
skinned  and  self-conscious  and  self-assertive, 
while  those  with  a  thousand  years  of  tradition 
would  have  thicker  hides  and  would  never  feel 
it  necessary  to  assert  themselves.  Give  an 
Englishman  as  good  as  he  gives  you,  and  you 
are  certain  to  win  his  respect,  and  probably 
his  regard.  In  this  connection  see  my  anecdote 
about  the  Tommies  and  Yankees  who  physically 
fought  it  out,  and  compare  it  with  the  Salisbury, 
the  van  Squibber,  and  the  opium  trade  anecdotes. 
" Treat  'em  rough,"  when  they  treat  you  rough: 
they  like  it.  Only,  be  sure  you  do  it  in  the  right 
way. 

Third.  We  differ  because  we  are  alike.  That 
American  who  stood  in  the  theatre  complaining 
about  the  sixpence  he  didn't  have  to  pay  at 
home  is  exactly  like  Englishmen  I  have  seen 
complaining  about  the  unexpected  here.  We 
share  not  only  the  same  mother-tongue,  we  share 
every  other  fundamental  thing  upon  which  our 
welfare  rests  and  our  lives  are  carried  on.  We 
like  the  same  things,  we  hate  the  same  things. 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     247 

We  have  the  same  notions  about  justice,  law, 
conduct ;  about  what  a  man  should  be,  about 
what  a  woman  should  be.  It  is  like  the  mother- 
tongue  we  share,  yet  speak  with  a  difference. 
Take  the  mother-tongue  for  a  parable  and  symbol 
of  all  the  rest.  Just  as  the  word  "girl"  is  iden 
tical  to  our  sight  but  not  to  our  hearing,  and 
means  oh!  quite  the  same  thing  throughout  us 
all  in  all  its  meanings,  so  that  identity  of  nature 
which  we  share  comes  often  to  the  surface  in 
different  guise.  Our  loquacity  estranges  the 
Englishman,  his  silence  estranges  us.  Behind 
that  silence  beats  the  English  heart,  warm,  con 
stant,  and  true;  none  other  like  it  on  earth, 
except  our  own  at  its  best,  beating  behind  our 
loquacity. 

Thus  far  my  anecdotes  carry  me.  May  they 
help  some  reader  to  a  better  understanding  of 
what  he  has  misunderstood  heretofore ! 

No  anecdotes  that  I  can  find  (though  I  am 
sure  that  they  are  to  be  found)  will  illustrate 
one  difference  between  the  two  peoples,  very 
noticeable  to-day.  It  is  increasing.  An  English 
man  not  only  sticks  closer  than  a  brother  to  his 
own  rights,  he  respects  the  rights  of  his  neighbor 


248  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

just  as  strictly.  We  Americans  are  losing  our 
grip  on  this.  It  is  the  bottom  of  the  whole  thing. 
It  is  the  moral  keystone  of  democracy.  How 
soever  we  may  talk  about  our  own  rights  to-day, 
we  pay  less  and  less  respect  to  those  of  our  neigh 
bors.  The  result  is  that  to-day  there  is  more 
liberty  in  England  than  here.  Liberty  consists 
and  depends  upon  respecting  your  neighbor's 
rights  every  bit  as  fairly  and  squarely  as  your 
own. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  wonder  if  the  English  are 
as  good  losers  as  we  are?  Hardly  anything  that 
they  could  do  would  rub  us  more  the  wrong  way 
than  to  deny  to  us  that  fair  play  in  sport  which 
they  accord  each  other.  I  shall  not  more  than 
mention  the  match  between  our  Benicia  Boy  and 
their  Tom  Sayers.  Of  this  the  English  version 
is  as  defective  as  our  school-book  account  of  the 
Revolution.  I  shall  also  pass  over  various  other 
international  events  that  are  somewhat  well 
known,  and  I  will  illustrate  the  point  with  an 
anecdote  known  to  but  a  few. 

Crossing  the  ocean  were  some  young  English 
and  Americans,  who  got  up  an  international 
tug-of-war.  A  friend  of  mine  was  anchor  of 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     249 

our  team.  We  happened  to  win.  They  didn't 
take  it  very  well.  One  of  them  said  to  the  anchor : 

"Do  you  know  why  you  pulled  us  over  the 
line?" 

"No." 

"Because  you  had  all  the  blackguards  on  your 
side  of  the  line." 

"Do  you  know  why  we  had  all  the  blackguards 
on  our  side  of  the  line?"  inquired  the  American. 

"No." 

"Because  we  pulled  you  over  the  line." 

In  one  of  my  anecdotes  I  used  the  term  Sam 
Johnson  to  describe  an  Englishman  of  a  certain 
type.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  was  a  very  marked 
specimen  of  the  type,  and  almost  the  only  illus 
trious  Englishman  of  letters  during  our  Revo 
lutionary  troubles  who  was  not  our  friend.  Right 
down  through  the  years  ever  since,  there  have 
been  Sam  Johnsons  writing  and  saying  unfavor 
able  things  about  us.  The  Tory  must  be  eternal, 
as  much  as  the  Whig  or  Liberal;  and  both  are 
always  needed.  There  will  probably  always  be 
Sam  Johnsons  in  England,  just  like  the  one  who 
was  scandalized  by  our  Chicago  packing-house 
disclosures.  No  longer  ago  than  June  1,  1919, 


250  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

a  Sam  Johnson,  who  was  discussing  the  Peace 
Treaty,  said  in  my  hearing,  in  London : 

"The  Yankees  shouldn't  have  been  brought 
into  any  consultation.  They  aided  and  abetted 
Germany." 

In  LitteWs  Living  Age  of  July  20,  1918,  pages 
151-160,  you  may  read  an  interesting  account  of 
British  writers  on  the  United  States.  The  by 
gone  ones  were  pretty  preposterous.  They  sati 
rized  the  newness  of  a  new  country.  It  was  like 
visiting  the  Esquimaux  and  complaining  that 
they  grew  no  pineapples  and  wore  skins.  In 
Littell  you  will  find  how  few  are  the  recent  Sam 
Johnsons  as  compared  with  the  recent  friendly 
writers.  You  will  also  be  reminded  that  our 
anti-English  complex  was  discerned  generations 
ago  by  Washington  Irving.  He  said  in  his 
Sketch  Book  that  writers  in  this  country  were 
"  instilling  anger  and  resentment  into  the  bosom 
of  a  youthful  nation,  to  grow  with  its  growth 
and  to  strengthen  with  its  strength." 

And  he  quotes  from  the  English  Quarterly 
Review,  which  in  that  early  day  already  wrote  of 
America  and  England : 

"  There  is  a  sacred  bond  between  us  by  blood 


RUDE  BRITANNIA,  CRUDE  COLUMBIA     251 

and  by  language  which  no  circumstances  can 
break.  .  .  .  Nations  are  too  ready  to  admit 
that  they  have  natural  enemies;  why  should 
they  be  less  willing  to  believe  that  they  have 
natural  friends?" 

It  is  we  ourselves  to-day,  not  England,  that 
are  pushing  friendship  away.  It  is  our  politicians, 
papers,  and  propagandists  who  are  making  the 
trouble  and  the  noise.  In  England  the  will  to 
friendship  rules,  has  ruled  for  a  long  while.  Does 
the  will  to  hate  rule  with  us?  Do  we  prefer 
Germany?  Do  we  prefer  the  independence  of 
Ireland  to  the  peace  of  the  world? 


CHAPTER  XVI 
AN   INTERNATIONAL   IMPOSTURE 


CHAPTER  XVI 

AN   INTERNATIONAL   IMPOSTURE 

A  PART  of  the  Irish  is  asking  our  voice  and  our 
gold  to  help  independence  for  the  whole  of  the 
Irish.  Independence  is  not  desired  by  the  whole 
of  the  Irish.  Irishmen  of  Ulster  have  plainly  said 
so.  Everybody  knows  this.  Roman  Catholics 
themselves  are  not  unanimous.  Only  some  of 
them  desire  independence.  These,  known  as 
Sinn  Fein,  appeal  to  us  for  deliverance  from  their 
conqueror  and  oppressor;  they  dwell  upon  the 
oppression  of  England  beneath  which  Ireland  is 
now  crushed.  They  refer  to  England's  brutal  and 
unjustifiable  conquest  of  the  Irish  nation  seven 
hundred  and  forty-eight  years  ago. 

What  is  the  truth,  what  are  the  facts? 

By  his  bull  "Laudabiliter,"  in  1155,  Pope 
Adrian  the  Fourth  invited  the  King  of  England  to 
take  charge  of  Ireland.  In  1172  Pope  Alexander 
the  Third  confirmed  this  by  several  letters,  at 
present  preserved  in  the  Black  Book  of  the  Ex- 

255 


256  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

chequer.  Accordingly,  Henry  the  Second  went  to 
Ireland.  All  the  archbishops  and  bishops  of  Ire 
land  met  him  at  Waterford,  received  him  as  king 
and  lord  of  Ireland,  vowing  loyal  obedience  to  him 
and  his  successors,  and  acknowledging  fealty  to 
them  forever.  These  prelates  were  followed  by 
the  kings  of  Cork,  Limerick,  Ossory,  Meath,  and 
by  Reginald  of  Waterford.  Roderick  O'Connor, 
King  of  Connaught,  joined  them  in  1175.  All 
these  accepted  Henry  the  Second  of  England  as 
their  Lord  and  King,  swearing  to  be  loyal  to  him 
and  his  successors  forever. 

Such  was  England's  brutal  and  unjustifiable 
conquest  of  Ireland. 

Ireland  was  not  a  nation,  it  was  a  tribal  chaos. 
The  Irish  nation  of  that  day  is  a  legend,  a  myth, 
built  by  poetic  imagination.  During  the  cen 
turies  succeeding  Henry  the  Second,  were  many 
eras  of  violence  and  bloodshed.  In  reading  the 
story,  it  is  hard  to  say  which  side  committed  the 
most  crimes.  During  those  same  centuries,  vio 
lence  and  bloodshed  and  oppression  existed  every 
where  in  Europe.  Undoubtedly  England  was 
very  oppressive  to  Ireland  at  times ;  but  since  the 
days  of  Gladstone  she  has  steadily  endeavored  to 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  IMPOSTURE         257 

relieve  Ireland,  with  the  result  that  today  she  is 
oppressing  Ireland  rather  less  than  our  Federal 
Government  is  oppressing  Massachusetts,  or  South 
Carolina,  or  any  State.  By  the  Wyndham  Land 
Act  of  1903,  Ireland  was  placed  in  a  position  so 
advantageous,  so  utterly  the  reverse  of  oppression, 
that  Dillon,  the  present  leader,  hastened  to  ob 
struct  the  operation  of  the  Act,  lest  the  Irish 
genius  for  grievance  might  perish  from  starvation. 
Examine  the  state  of  things  for  yourself,  I  cannot 
swell  this  book  with  the  details ;  they  are  as  acces 
sible  to  you  as  the  few  facts  about  the  conquest 
which  I  have  just  narrated.  Examine  the  facts, 
but  even  without  examining  them,  ask  yourself 
this  question :  With  Canada,  Australia,  and  all 
those  other  colonies  that  I  have  named  above, 
satisfied  with  England's  rule,  hastening  to  her 
assistance,  and  with  only  Ireland  selling  herself  to 
Germany,  is  it  not  just  possible  that  something  is 
the  matter  with  Ireland  rather  than  with  England  ? 
Sinn  Fein  will  hear  of  no  Home  Rule.  Sinn 
Fein  demands  independence.  Independence  Sinn 
Fein  will  not  get.  Not  only  because  of  the  outrage 
to  unconsenting  Ulster,  but  also  because  Britain, 
having  just  got  rid  of  one  Heligoland  to  the  East, 


258  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

will  not  permit  another  to  start  up  on  the  West. 
As  early  as  August  25th,  1914,  mention  in  German 
papers  was  made  of  the  presence  in  Berlin  of 
Casement  and  of  his  mission  to  invite  Germany  to 
step  into  Ireland  when  England  was  fighting 
Germany.  The  traffic  went  steadily  on  from  that 
time,  and  broke  out  in  the  revolution  and  the 
crimes  in  Dublin  in  1916.  England  discovered 
the  plan  of  the  revolution  just  in  time  to  foil  the 
landing  in  Ireland  of  Germany,  whom  Ireland  had 
invited  there.  Were  England  seeking  to  break 
loose  from  Ireland,  she  could  sue  Ireland  for  a 
divorce  and  name  the  Kaiser  as  co-respondent. 
Any  court  would  grant  it. 

The  part  of  Ireland  which  does  not  desire  inde 
pendence,  which  desires  it  so  little  that  it  was 
ready  to  resist  Home  Rule  by  force  in  1914,  is  the 
steady,  thrifty,  clean,  coherent,  prosperous  part  of 
Ireland.  It  is  the  other,  the  unstable  part  of 
Ireland,  which  has  declared  Ireland  to  be  a  Re 
public.  For  convenience  I  will  designate  this  part 
as  Green  Ireland,  and  the  thrifty,  stable  part  as 
Orange  Ireland.  So  when  our  politicians  sym 
pathize  with  an  "  Irish "  Republic,  they  befriend 
merely  Green  Ireland ;  they  offend  Orange  Ireland. 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  IMPOSTURE         259 

Americans  are  being  told  in  these  days  that 
they  owe  a  debt  of  support  to  Irish  independence, 
because  the  " Irish"  fought  with  us  in  our  own 
struggle  for  Independence.  Yes,  the  Irish  did, 
and  we  do  owe  them  a  debt  of  support.  But  it 
was  the  Orange  Irish  who  fought  in  our  Revolu 
tion,  not  the  Green  Irish.  Therefore  in  paying 
the  debt  to  the  Green  Irish  and  clamoring  for 
" Irish"  independence,  we  are  double  crossing 
the  Orange  Irish. 

"It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in  the  Revolutionary 
War  the  Germans  and  Catholic  Irish  should  have 
furnished  the  bulk  of  the  auxiliaries  to  the  regular 
English  soldiers;  .  .  .  The  fiercest  and  most 
ardent  Americans  of  all,  however,  were  the  Pres 
byterian  Irish  settlers  and  their  descendants." 
History  of  New  York,  p.  133,  by  Theodore  Roose 
velt. 

Next,  in  what  manner  have  the  Green  Irish 
incurred  our  thanks? 

They  made  the  ancient  and  honorable  associa 
tion  of  Tammany  their  own.  Once  it  was  Ameri 
can.  Now  Tammany  is  Green  Irish.  I  do  not 
believe  that  I  need  pause  to  tell  you  much  about 
Tammany.  It  defeated  Mitchel,  a  loyal  but 


260  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

honest  Catholic,  and  the  best  Mayor  of  New 
York  in  thirty  years.  It  is  a  despotism  built  on 
corruption  and  fear. 

During  our  Civil  War,  it  was  the  Green  Irish 
that  resisted  the  draft  in  New  York.  They 
would  not  fight.  You  have  heard  of  the  draft 
riots  in  New  York  in  1862.  They  would  not 
fight  for  the  Confederacy  either. 

During  the  following  decade,  in  Pennsylvania, 
an  association,  called  the  Molly  Maguires,  ter 
rorized  the  coal  regions  until  their  reign  of  assas 
sination  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  detection, 
conviction,  and  execution  of  their  ringleaders. 
These  were  Green  Irish. 

In  Cork  and  Queenstown  during  the  recent 
war,  our  American  sailors  were  assaulted  and 
stoned  by  the  Green  Irish,  because  they  had 
come  to  help  fight  Germany.  These  assaults, 
and  the  retaliations  to  which  they  led,  became 
so  serious  that  no  naval  men  under  the  rank  of 
Commander  were  permitted  to  go  to  Cork. 
Leading  citizens  of  Cork  came  to  beg  that  this 
order  be  rescinded.  But,  upon  being  cross- 
examined,  it  was  found  that  the  Green  Irish  who 
had  made  the  trouble  had  never  been  punished. 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  IMPOSTURE         261 

Of  this  many  of  us  had  news  before  Admiral  Sims 
in  The  World's  Work  for  November,  pages  63-64, 
gave  it  his  authoritative  confirmation. 

Taking  one  consideration  with  another,  it 
hardly  seems  to  me  that  our  debt  to  the  Green 
Irish  is  sufficiently  heavy  for  us  to  hinder  England 
for  the  sake  of  helping  them  and  Germany. 

Not  all  the  Green  Irish  were  guilty  of  the  at 
tacks  upon  our  sailors ;  not  all  by  any  means  were 
pro-German ;  and  I  know  personally  of  loyal 
Roman  Catholics  who  are  wholly  on  England's 
side,  and  are  wholly  opposed  to  Sinn  Fein.  Many 
such  are  here,  many  in  Ireland :  them  I  do  not 
mean.  It  is  Sinn  Fein  that  I  mean. 

In  1918,  when  England  with  her  back  to  the  wall 
was  fighting  Germany,  the  Green  Irish  killed  the 
draft.  Here  following,  I  give  some  specific  in 
stances  of  what  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  said. 

April  21st.  After  mass  at  Castletown,  Bear 
Haven,  Father  Brennan  ordered  his  flock  to 
resist  conscription,  take  the  sacrament,  and  to  be 
ready  to  resist  to  the  death ;  such  death  insuring 
the  full  benediction  of  God  and  his  Church.  If 
the  police  resort  to  force,  let  the  people  kill  the 
police  as  they  would  kill  any  one  who  threatened 


262  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

their  lives.  If  soldiers  came  in  support  of  the 
draft,  let  them  be  treated  like  the  police.  Police 
men  and  soldiers  dying  in  their  attempt  to  carry 
out  the  draft  law,  would  die  the  enemies  of  God, 
while  the  people  who  resisted  them  would  die  in 
peace  with  God  and  under  the  benediction  of  his 
Church. 

Father  Lynch  said  in  -church  at  Ryehill : 
"  Resist  the  draft  by  every  means  in  your  power. 
Any  minion  of  the  English  Government  who  fires 
upon  you,  above  all  if  he  is  a  Catholic,  commits 
a  mortal  sin  and  God  will  punish  him." 

In  the  chapel  at  Kilgarvan  Father  Murphy  said  : 
"Every  Irishman  who  helps  to  apply  the  draft  in 
Ireland  is  not  only  a  traitor  to  his  country,  but 
commits  a  mortal  sin  against  God's  law." 

At  mass  in  Scariff  the  Rev.  James  Maclnerney 
said:  "No  Irish  Catholic,  whatever  his  station 
be,  can  help  the  draft  in  this  country  without 
denying  his  faith." 

April  28th.  After  having  given  the  communion 
to  three  hundred  men  in  the  church  at  Eyries, 
County  Cork,  Father  Gerald  Dennehy  said: 
"Any  Catholic  who  either  as  policeman  or  as 
agent  of  the  government  shall  assist  in  applying 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  IMPOSTURE         263 

the  draft,  shall  be  excommunicated  and  cursed  by 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  curse  of  God 
will  follow  him  in  every  land.  You  can  kill  him 
at  sight,  God  will  bless  you  and  it  will  be  the  most 
acceptable  sacrifice  that  you  can  offer." 

Referring  to  any  policeman  who  should  attempt 
to  enforce  the  draft,  Father  Murphy  said  at  mass 
in  Killenna,  "Any  policeman  who  is  killed  in  such 
attempt  will  be  damned  in  hell,  even  if  he  was  in  a 
state  of  grace  that  very  morning." 

Ninety-five  percent  of  those  Irish  policemen 
were  Catholics  and  had  to  respect  the  commands 
of  those  priests. 

Ireland  is  England's  business,  not  ours.  But 
the  word  "  self-determination "  appears  to  hypno 
tize  some  Americans.  We  must  not  be  hypno 
tized  by  this  word.  It  is  upon  the  " principle" 
expressed  in  this  word  that  our  sympathies  with 
the  Irish  Republic  are  asked.  The  six  north 
eastern  counties  of  Ulster,  on  the  " principle"  of 
self-determination,  should  be  separated  from  the 
Irish  Republic.  But  the  Green  Irish  will  not  listen 
to  that.  Protestants  in  Ulster  had  to  listen  in 
their  own  chief  city  to  Sinn  Fein  rejoicings  over 
German  victories.  The  rebellion  of  1916,  when 


264  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

Sinn  Fein  opened  the  back  door  that  England's 
enemies  might  enter  and  destroy  her  —  this 
dastardly  treason  was  made  bloody  by  cowardly 
violence.  The  unarmed  and  the  unsuspecting 
were  shot  down  and  stabbed  in  cold  blood.  Later, 
soldiers  who  came  home  from  the  front,  wounded 
soldiers  too,  were  persecuted  and  assaulted.  The 
men  of  Ulster  don't  wish  to  fall  under  the  power 
of  the  Green  Irish. 

"We  do  not  know  whether  the  British  states 
men  are  right  in  asserting  a  connection  between 
Irish  revolutionary  feeling  and  German  propa 
ganda.  But  in  such  a  connection  we  should  see 
no  sign  of  a  bad  German  policy."  Thus  wrote  a 
Prussian  deputy  in  Das  Grossere  Deutschland. 
That  was  over  there.  This  was  over  here :  - 

"The  fraternal  understanding  which  unites  the 
Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians  and  the  German- 
American  Alliance  receives  our  unqualified  en 
dorsement.  This  unity  of  effort  in  all  matters 
of  a  public  nature  intended  to  circumvent  the 
efforts  of  England  to  secure  an  Anglo-American 
alliance  have  been  productive  of  very  successful 
results.  The  congratulations  of  those  of  us  who 
live  under  the  flag  of  the  United  States  are  ex- 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  IMPOSTURE         265 

tended  to  our  German-American  fellow  citizens 
upon  the  conquests  won  by  the  fatherland,  and  we 
assure  them  of  our  unshaken  confidence  that  the 
German  Empire  will  crush  England  and  aid  in  the 
liberation  of  Ireland,  and  be  a  real  defender  of 
small  nations."  See  the  Boston  Herald  of  July 
22,  1916. 

During  our  Civil  War,  in  1862,  a  resolution  of 
sympathy  with  the  South  was  stifled  in  Parlia 
ment. 

On  June  6,  1919,  our  Senate  passed,  with  one 
dissenting  voice,  the  following,  offered  by  Senator 
Walsh,  democrat,  of  Massachusetts : 

"  Resolved,  that  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
express  its  sympathy  with  the  aspirations  of  the 
Irish  people  for  a  government  of  its  own  choice." 

What  England  would  not  do  for  the  South  in 
1862,  we  now  do  against  England  our  ally,  against 
Ulster,  our  friend  in  our  Revolution,  and  in  support 
of  England's  enemies,  Sinn  Fein  and  Germany. 

Ireland  has  less  than  4,500,000  inhabitants; 
Ulster's  share  is  about  one  third,  and  its  Prot 
estants  outnumber  its  Catholics  by  more  than 
three  fourths.  Besides  such  reprisals  as  they 
saw  wrought  upon  wounded  soldiers,  they  know 


266  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

that  the  Green  Irish  who  insist  that  Ulster  belong 
to  their  Republic,  do  so  because  they  plan  to  make 
prosperous  and  thrifty  Ulster  their  milch  cow. 

Let  every  fair-minded  American  pause,  then, 
before  giving  his  sympathy  to  an  independent 
Irish  Republic  on  the  principle  of  self-determina 
tion,  or  out  of  gratitude  to  the  Green  Irish.  Let 
him  remember  that  it  was  the  Orange  Irish  who 
helped  us  in  our  Revolution,  and  that  the  Orange 
Irish  do  not  want  an  independent  Irish  Repub 
lic.  There  will  be  none ;  our  interference  merely 
makes  Germany  happy  and  possibly  prolongs 
the  existing  chaos;  but  there  will  be  none.  Be 
fore  such  loyal  and  thinking  Catholics  as  the 
gentleman  who  said  to  me  that  word  about 
"  spoiling  the  ship  for  a  ha'penny  worth  of  tar," 
and  before  a  firm  and  coherent  policy  on  Eng 
land's  part,  Sinn  Fein  will  fade  like  a  poisonous 
mist. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
PAINT 


CHAPTER   XVII 

PAINT 

SOLDIERS  of  ours  —  many  soldiers,  I  am  sorry 
to  say  —  have  come  back  from  Coblenz  and 
other  places  in  the  black  spot,  saying  that  they 
found  the  inhabitants  of  the  black  spot  kind  and 
agreeable.  They  give  this  reason  for  liking  the 
Germans  better  than  they  do  the  English.  They 
found  the  Germans  agreeable,  the  English  not 
agreeable.  Well,  this  amounts  to  something  as 
far  as  it  goes :  but  how  far  does  it  go,  and  how 
much  does  it  amount  to?  Have  you  ever  seen 
an  automobile  painted  up  to  look  like  new,  and 
it  broke  down  before  it  had  run  ten  miles,  and 
you  found  its  insides  were  wrong?  Would  you 
buy  an  automobile  on  the  strength  of  the  paint? 
England  often  needs  paint,  but  her  insides  are 
all  right.  If  our  soldiers  look  no  deeper  than 
the  paint,  if  our  voters  look  no  further  than  the 
paint,  if  our  democracy  never  looks  at  anything 
but  the  paint,  God  help  our  democracy!  Of 


270  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

course  the  Germans  were  agreeable  to  our  soldiers 
after  the  armistice! 

Agreeable  Germany !  —  who  sank  the  Lusi- 
tania;  who  sank  five  thousand  British  merchant 
ships  with  the  loss  of  fifteen  thousand  men, 
women,  and  children,  all  murdered  at  sea,  without 
a  chance  for  their  lives ;  who  fired  on  boat-loads 
of  the  shipwrecked,  who  stood  on  her  submarine 
and  laughed  at  the  drowning  passengers  of  the 
torpedoed  Falaba. 

Disagreeable  England ! — who  sank  five  hundred 
German  ships  without  permitting  a  single  life  to 
be  lost,  who  never  fired  a  shot  until  provision  had 
been  made  for  the  safety  of  passengers  and  crews. 

Agreeable  Germany !  —  who,  as  she  retreated, 
poisoned  wells  and  gassed  the  citizens  from  whose 
village  she  was  running  away;  who  wrecked  the 
churches  and  the  homes  of  the  helpless  living,  and 
bombed  the  tombs  of  the  helpless  dead ;  who 
wrenched  families  apart  in  the  night,  taking  their 
boys  to  slavery  and  their  girls  to  wholesale  viola 
tion,  leaving  the  old  people  to  wander  in  lone 
liness  and  die ;  who  in  her  raids  upon  England 
slaughtered  three  hundred  and  forty-two  women, 
and  killed  or  injured  seven  hundred  and  fifty- 


PAINT  271 

seven  children,  and  made  in  all  a  list  of  four 
thousand  five  hundred  and  sixty-eight,  bombed 
by  her  airmen;  whose  trained  nurses  met  our 
wounded  and  captured  men  at  the  railroad  trains 
and  held  out  cups  of  water  for  them  to  see,  and 
then  poured  them  on  the  ground  or  spat  in  them. 
Disagreeable  England !  —  whose  colonies  rushed 
to  help  her:  Canada,  who  within  eight  weeks 
after  war  had  been  declared,  came  with  a  volun 
tary  army  of  thirty-three  thousand  men;  who 
stood  her  ground  against  that  first  meeting  with 
the  poison  gas  and  saved  not  only  the  day,  but 
possibly  the  whole  cause ;  who  by  1917  had  sent 
over  four  hundred  thousand  men  to  help  dis 
agreeable  England;  who  gave  her  wealth,  her 
food,  her  substance ;  who  poured  every  symbol 
of  aid  and  love  into  disagreeable  England's  lap 
to  help  her  beat  agreeable  Germany.  Thus  did 
all  England's  colonies  offer  and  bring  both  them 
selves  and  their  resources,  from  the  smallest  to 
the  greatest;  little  Newfoundland,  whose  regi 
ment  gave  such  heroic  account  of  itself  at  Gallipoli ; 
Australia  who  came  with  her  cruisers,  and  with 
also  her  armies  to  the  West  Front  and  in  South 
Africa;  New  Zealand  who  came  from  the  other 


272  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

side  of  the  world  with  men  and  money  —  three 
million  pounds  in  gift,  not  loan,  from  one  million 
people.  And  the  Boers?  The  Boers,  who  latest 
of  all,  not  twenty  years  before,  had  been  at  war 
with  England,  and  conquered  by  her,  and  then 
by  her  had  been  given  a  Boer  Government.  What 
did  the  Boers  do?  In  spite  of  the  Kaiser's  tele 
gram  of  sympathy,  in  spite  of  his  plans  and  his 
hopes,  they  too,  like  Canada  and  New  Zealand 
and  all  the  rest,  sided  of  their  own  free  will  with 
disagreeable  England  against  agreeable  Germany. 
They  first  stamped  out  a  German  rebellion,  in 
stigated  in  their  midst,  and  then  these  Boers  left 
their  farms,  and  came  to  England's  aid,  and 
drove  German  power  from  Southwest  Africa. 
And  do  you  remember  the  wire  that  came  from 
India  to  London?  "What  orders  from  the 
King-Emperor  for  me  and  my  men?"  These 
were  the  words  of  the  Maharajah  of  Rewa ;  and 
thus  spoke  the  rest  of  India.  The  troops  she 
sent  captured  Neuve  Chapelle.  From  first  to 
last  they  fought  in  many  places  for  the  Cause  of 
England. 

What   do   words,    or   propaganda,   what   does 
anything  count  in  the  face  of  such  facts  as  these? 


PAINT  273 

Agreeable  Germany !  —  who  addresses  her  God, 
"Thou  who  dwellest  high  above  the  Cherubim, 
Seraphim  and  Zeppelin"  —  Parson  Diedrich  Vor- 
werck  in  his  volume  Hurrah  and  Hallelujah. 
Germany,  who  says,  "It  is  better  to  let  a  hundred 
women  and  children  belonging  to  the  enemy  die 
of  hunger  than  to  let  a  single  German  soldier 
suffer"  —  General  von  der  Goltz  in  his  Ten 
Iron  Commandments  of  the  German  Soldier; 
Germany,  whose  soldier  obeys  those  command 
ments  thus :  "I  am  sending  you  a  ring  made  out 
of  a  piece  of  shell.  .  .  .  During  the  battle  of 
Budonviller  I  did  away  with  four  women  and 
seven  young  girls  in  five  minutes.  The  Captain 
had  told  me  to  shoot  these  French  sows,  but  I 
preferred  to  run  my  bayonet  through  them" 
private  Johann  Wenger  to  his  German  sweet 
heart,  dated  Peronne,  March  16,  1915.  Germany, 
whose  newspaper  the  Cologne  Volkszeitung  de 
plored  the  doings  of  her  Kultur  on  land  and  sea 
thus:  "Much  as  we  detest  it  as  human  beings 
and  as  Christians,  yet  we  exult  in  it  as  Germans." 

Agreeable  Germany !  —  whose  Kaiser,  if  his  fleet 
had  been  larger,  would  have  taken  us  by  the  scruff 
of  the  neck. 


274  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

"Then  Thou,  Almighty  One,  send  Thy  lightnings! 
Let  dwellings  and  cottages  become  ashes 

in  the  heat  of  fire. 
Let  the  people  in  hordes  burn  and  drown 

with  wife  and  child. 
May  their  seed  be  trampled  under  our 

feet; 
May  we  kill  great  and  small  in  the 

lust  of  joy. 
May  we  plunge  our  daggers  into  their 

bodies, 

May  Poland  reek  in  the  glow  of  fire  and 
ashes." 

That  is  another  verse  of  Germany's  hymn,  hate 
for  Poland ;  that  is  her  way  of  taking  people  by 
the  scruff  of  the  neck;  and  that  is  what  Senator 
Walsh's  resolution  of  sympathy  with  Ireland, 
Germany's  contemplated  Heligoland,  implies  for 
the  United  States,  if  Germany's  deferred  day 
should  come. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   WILL  TO   FRIENDSHIP  —  OR  THE 
WILL  TO  HATE? 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  WILL  TO  FRIENDSHIP  —  OR  THE  WILL  TO  HATE  ? 

NATIONS  do  not  like  each  other.  No  plainer 
fact  stares  at  us  from  the  pages  of  history  since 
the  beginning.  Are  we  to  sit  down  under  this 
forever?  Why  should  we  make  no  attempt  to 
change  this  for  the  better  in  the  pages  of  history 
that  are  yet  to  be  written?  Other  evils  have 
been  made  better.  In  this  very  war,  the  outcry 
against  Germany  has  been  because  she  deliber 
ately  brought  back  into  war  the  cruelties  and 
the  horrors  of  more  barbarous  times,  and  with 
cold  calculations  of  premeditated  science  made 
these  horrors  worse.  Our  recoil  from  this  deed 
of  hers  and  what  it  has  brought  upon  the  world 
is  seen  hi  our  wish  for  a  League  of  Nations.  The 
thought  of  any  more  battles,  trenches,  sub 
marines,  air-raids,  starvation,  misery,  is  so  un 
bearable  to  our  bruised  and  stricken  minds,  that 
we  have  put  it  into  words  whose  import  is,  Let 

277 


278  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

us  have  no  more  of  this!  We  have  at  least  put 
it  into  words.  That  such  words,  that  such  a 
League,  can  now  grow  into  something  more  than 
words,  is  the  hope  of  many,  the  doubt  of  many, 
the  belief  of  a  few.  It  is  the  belief  of  Mr.  Wilson ; 
of  Mr.  Taft ;  Lord  Bryce ;  and  of  Lord  Grey, 
a  quiet  Englishman,  whose  statesmanship  during 
those  last  ten  murky  days  of  July,  1914,  when  he 
strove  to  avert  the  dreadful  years  that  followed, 
will  shine  bright  and  permanent.  We  must  not 
be  chilled  by  the  doubters.  Especially  is  the 
scheme  doubted  in  dear  old  Europe.  Dear  old 
Europe  is  so  old ;  we  are  so  young ;  we  cause  her 
to  smile.  Yet  it  is  not  such  a  contemptible  thing 
to  be  young  and  innocent.  Only,  your  innocence, 
while  it  makes  you  an  idealist,  must  not  blind 
you  to  the  facts.  Your  idea  must  not  rest  upon 
sand.  It  must  have  a  little  rock  to  start  with. 
The  nearest  rock  in  sight  is  friendship  between 
England  and  ourselves. 

The  will  to  friendship  —  or  the  will  to  hate  ? 
Which  do  you  choose?  Which  do  you  think 
is  the  best  foundation  for  the  League  of  Nations? 
Do  you  imagine  that  so  long  as  nations  do  not 
like  each  other,  that  mere  words  of  good  inten- 


THE  WILL  TO  FRIENDSHIP  279 

tion,  written  on  mere  paper,  are  going  to  be 
enough?  Write  down  the  words  by  all  means, 
but  see  to  it  that  behind  your  words  there  shall 
exist  actual  good  will.  Discourage  histories  for 
children  (and  for  grown-ups  too)  which  breed 
international  dislike.  Such  exist  among  us  all. 
There  is  a  recent  one,  written  in  England,  that 
needs  some  changes. 

Should  an  Englishman  say  to  me : 

"I  have  the  will  to  friendship.  Is  there  any 
particular  thing  which  I  can  do  to  help?"  I 
should  answer  him : 

"Just  now,  or  in  any  days  to  come,  should  you 
be  tempted  to  remind  us  that  we  did  not  protest 
against  the  martyrdom  of  Belgium,  that  we  were 
a  bit  slow  in  coming  into  the  war,  —  oh,  don't 
utter  that  reproach !  Go  back  to  your  own  past ; 
look,  for  instance,  at  your  guarantee  to  Denmark, 
at  Lord  John  Russell's  words  :  'Her  Majesty  could 
not  see  with  indifference  a  military  occupation  of 
Holstein'  —  and  then  see  what  England  shirked  ; 
and  read  that  scathing  sentence  spoken  to  her 
ambassador  in  Russia :  '  Then  we  may  dismiss 
any  idea  that  England  will  fight  on  a  point  of 
honor.'  We  had  made  you  no  such  guarantee. 


280  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

We  were  three  thousand  miles  away  —  how  far 
was  Denmark? 

"And  another  thing.  On  August  6,  1919,  when 
Britain's  thanks  to  her  land  and  sea  forces  were 
moved  in  both  houses  of  Parliament,  the  gentle 
man  who  moved  them  in  the  House  of  Lords 
said  something  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  adds 
nothing  to  the  tribute  he  had  already  paid  so 
eloquently.  He  had  spoken  of  the  greater  in 
centive  to  courage  which  the  French  and  Belgians 
had,  because  their  homes  and  soil  were  invaded, 
while  England's  soldiers  had  suffered  no  invasion 
of  their  island.  They  had  not  the  stimulus  of 
the  knowledge  that  the  frontier  of  their  country 
had  been  violated,  their  homes  broken  up,  their 
families  enslaved,  or  worse.  And  then  he  added : 
'I  have  sometimes  wondered  in  my  own  mind, 
though  I  have  hardly  dared  confess  the  sentiment, 
whether  the  gallant  troops  of  our  Allies  would, 
have  fought  with  equal  spirit  and  so  long  a  time 
as  they  did,  had  they  been  engaged  in  the  High 
lands  of  Scotland  or  on  the  marches  of  the  Welsh 
border/  Why  express  that  wonder?  Is  there 
not  here  an  instance  of  that  needless  overlooking 
of  the  feelings  of  others,  by  which,  in  times  past, 


THE  WILL  TO  FRIENDSHIP  281 

you  have  chilled  those  others?  Look  out  for 
that." 

And  should  an  American  say  to  me  : 

"I  have  the  will  to  friendship.  What  can  I 
personally  do?"  I  should  say  : 

"Play  fair!  Look  over  our  history  from  that 
Treaty  of  Paris  in  1783,  down  through  the  Louisi 
ana  Purchase,  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  Manila 
Bay ;  look  at  the  facts.  You  will  see  that  no 
matter  how  acrimoniously  England  has  quarreled 
with  us,  these  were  always  family  scraps,  in 
which  she  held  out  for  her  own  interests  just  as 
we  did  for  ours.  But  whenever  the  question 
lay  between  ourselves  and  Spain,  or  France,  or 
Germany,  or  any  foreign  power,  England  stood 
with  us  against  them. 

"  And  another  thing.  Not  all  Americans  boast, 
but  we  have  a  reputation  for  boasting.  Our 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  gave  our  navy  the 
whole  credit  for  transporting  our  soldiers  to 
Europe  when  England  did  more  than  half  of  it. 
At  Annapolis  there  has  been  a  poster,  showing 
a  big  American  sailor  with  a  doughboy  on  his 
back,  and  underneath  the  words,  'We  put  them 
across. '  A  brigadier  general  has  written  a  book 


282  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

entitled,  How  the  Marines  Saved  Paris.  Beside 
the  marines  there  were  some  engineers.  And  how 
about  M  Company  of  the  23d  regiment  of  the 
2d  Division?  It  lost  in  one  day  at  Chateau- 
Thierry  all  its  men  but  seven.  And  did  the 
general  forget  the  3d  Division  between  Chateau- 
Thierry  and  Dormans?  Don't  be  like  that 
brigadier  general,  and  don't  be  like  that  Ameri 
can  officer  returning  on  the  Lapland  who  told  the 
British  at  his  table  he  was  glad  to  get  home  after 
cleaning  up  the  mess  which  the  British  had  made. 
Resemble  as  little  as  possible  our  present  Secretary 
of  the  Navy.  Avoid  boasting.  Our  contribution 
to  victory  was  quite  enough  without  boasting. 
The  head-master  of  one  of  our  great  schools  has 
put  it  thus  to  his  schoolboys  who  fought :  Some 
people  had  to  raise  a  hundred  dollars.  After 
struggling  for  years  they  could  only  raise  seventy- 
five.  Then  a  man  came  along  and  furnished  the 
remaining  necessary  twenty-five  dollars.  That  is 
a  good  way  to  put  it.  What  good  would  our 
twenty-five  dollars  have  been,  and  where  should 
we  have  been,  if  the  other  fellows  hadn't  raised 
the  seventy-five  dollars  first  ?" 


CHAPTER  XIX 
LION  AND  CUB 


CHAPTER  XIX 

LION    AND    CUB 

MY  task  is  done.  I  have  discussed  with  as 
much  brevity  as  I  could  the  three  foundations  of 
our  ancient  grudge  against  England :  our  school 
textbooks,  our  various  controversies  from  the 
Revolution  to  the  Alaskan  boundary  dispute, 
and  certain  differences  in  customs  and  manners. 
Some  of  our  historians  to  whom  I  refer  are  them 
selves  affected  by  the  ancient  grudge.  You  will 
see  this  if  you  read  them ;  you  will  find  the  facts, 
which  they  give  faithfully,  and  you  will  also  find 
that  they  often  (and  I  think  unconsciously) 
color  such  facts  as  are  to  England's  discredit  and 
leave  pale  such  as  are  to  her  credit,  just  as  we 
remember  the  Alabama,  and  forget  the  Lan 
cashire  cotton-spinners.  You  cannot  fail  to  find, 
unless  y  our  *  anti-English  complex  tilts  your  judg 
ment  incurably,  that  England  has  been  to  us,  on 
the  whole,  very  much  more  friendly  than  un 
friendly  —  if  not  at  the  beginning,  certainly  at 

285 


286  A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

the  end  of  each  controversy.  What  an  anti- 
English  complex  can  do  in  the  face  of  1914,  is 
hard  to  imagine :  Canada,  Australia,  New  Zea 
land,  India,  the  Boers,  all  Great  Britain's  colonies, 
coming  across  the  world  to  pour  their  gold  and 
their  blood  out  for  her !  She  did  not  ask  them ; 
she  could  not  force  them ;  of  their  own  free  will 
they  did  it.  In  the  whole  story  of  mankind  such 
a  splendid  tribute  of  confidence  and  loyalty  has 
never  before  been  paid  to  any  nation. 

In  this  many-peopled  world  England  is  our 
nearest  relation.  From  Bonaparte  to  the  Kaiser, 
never  has  she  allowed  any  outsider  to  harm  us. 
We  are  her  cub.  She  has  often  clawed  us,  and 
we  have  clawed  her  in  return.  This  will  probably 
go  on.  Once  earlier  in  these  pages,  I  asked  the 
reader  not  to  misinterpret  me,  and  now  at  the 
end  I  make  the  same  request.  I  have  not  sought 
to  persuade  him  that  Great  Britain  is  a  charitable 
institution.  What  nation  is,  or  could  be,  given 
the  nature  of  man?  Her  good  treatment  of  us 
has  been  to  her  own  interest.  She  is  wise,  far- 
seeing,  less  of  an  opportunist  in  her  statesman 
ship  than  any  other  nation.  She  has  seen  clearly 
and  ever  more  clearly  that  our  good  will  was  to 


LION  AND  CUB  287 

her  advantage.  And  beneath  her  wisdom,  at 
the  bottom  of  all,  is  her  sense  of  our  kinship 
through  liberty  defined  and  assured  by  law. 
If  we  were  so  far-seeing  as  she  is,  we  also 
should  know  that  her  good  will  is  equally  im 
portant  to  us :  not  alone  for  material  reasons, 
or  for  the  sake  of  our  safety,  but  also  for  those 
few  deep,  ultimate  ideals  of  law,  liberty,  life, 
manhood  and  womanhood,  which  we  share  with 
her,  which  we  got  from  her,  because  she  is  our 
nearest  relation  in  this  many-peopled  world. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


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U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


789436 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


